Pakistan is complicit in killing by Taliban, a Polish official says
The Associated Press
Published: February 10, 2009
WARSAW: A day after a video appeared purporting to show the beheading of a Polish engineer by Taliban militants in Pakistan, the Polish government promised Monday to issue international arrest warrants for the militants, and
officials charged that elements within the Pakistani government shared blame for the killing.
Without a body, the Polish authorities were unable to confirm the death of the engineer, Piotr Stanczak, 42, but they said a seven-minute video delivered Sunday to journalists in Pakistan appeared to be authentic.
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski condemned the killing as a "bestial execution" and said the government would issue arrest warrants for the killers.
"A crime was committed," he said, "so there has to be an investigation, a search for the culprits, and if possible putting them before the justice system, and an exemplary punishment."
It was not immediately clear what impact the warrants would have, because Poland does not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan.
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Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma said Polish intelligence had identified the kidnappers as members of a Taliban group. He said intelligence had "described the leadership of the group, their relatives, where they are located, their friends in Pakistani government structures."
Czuma said the extremists enjoyed the favor of some Pakistani officials. "A lot of people among Pakistan's authorities sympathize with these bandits," he said on a television news channel.
Pakistan's top diplomat in Poland rejected the accusation, saying his country was doing everything in its power to combat terrorism.
"Suicide attacks are being carried out against the security forces, and we have lost not only common citizens but our security forces in tribal areas," said Malik Farooq, the chargé d'affaires at the Pakistani Embassy in Warsaw. "Pakistan has been a great victim of terrorism and extremism."
Stanczak was kidnapped near the Afghan border on Sept. 28 by armed men while he was surveying oil and gas fields for a Krakow-based geophysics company. The gunmen killed three Pakistanis traveling with him.
His killing, if confirmed, would be the first of a Western hostage in Pakistan since Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was beheaded in 2002.
A spokesman for the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan said Stanczak was "slaughtered" because the Pakistani government missed a deadline to release 26 prisoners. The Taliban had also demanded that the government withdraw troops from tribal areas.
The video shows two hooded men taking a dagger in turn and running it along the victim's neck. One of them then cleans his blood-soaked hands with the victim's shirt.
Pakistan is complicit in killing by Taliban, a Polish official says - International Herald Tribune