Poland puts beheading blame on Pakistani gov’t

[LahoreEstate]

A frame grab from video footage released by Pakistani Taliban shows kidnapped Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak at an unknown location.—Reuters


WARSAW: Poland promised Monday to issue international arrest warrants for Taliban militants after the apparent beheading of a Polish engineer in Pakistan, and officials charged that elements within the Pakistani government shared blame for the killing.
Pakistan's top diplomat in Poland firmly rejected the accusation that some members of the Islamabad government are sympathetic to Islamic extremists, saying his country is snarled in a bitter fight with terrorist groups that is killing many of its own.
Without a body, Polish authorities were not able to officially confirm the death of Piotr Stanczak, but they said a seven-minute video purporting to show the 42-year-old's slaying appeared authentic. Copies of the video were delivered to journalists in Pakistan on Sunday.
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski condemned the apparent killing as a ‘bestial execution’ and said the government would issue arrest warrants for the culprits.
‘A crime was committed, 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,’' he said.
It was not immediately clear what impact the issuing of warrants might have, because Poland does not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan.
Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma said Polish intelligence has identified the kidnappers as members of a Taliban group. He said intelligence ‘has described the leadership of the group, their relatives, where they are located, their friends in Pakistani government structures.’
Czuma alleged that the extremists enjoy the favor of some officials in the Pakistani government. ‘A lot of people among Pakistan's authorities sympathise with these bandits,’ he said on the all-news station TVN24.
Malik Farooq, the first secretary and charge d'affaires at Pakistan's embassy in Warsaw, called Czuma's comments surprising and unfair. He said Pakistan is 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,’ Farooq said. ‘Pakistan has been a great victim of terrorism and extremism.’
Stanczak was kidnapped close to the Afghan border 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 the engineer.
Few Poles are working in Pakistan at the moment, according to the Foreign Ministry, but about 1,600 Polish soldiers are serving with the Nato mission in Afghanistan.
A spokesman for Taliban militants in northwestern Pakistan told The Associated Press that Stanczak was ‘slaughtered’ because the Pakistani government missed a deadline to release 26 prisoners. The Taliban had also demanded the government withdraw troops from Pakistan's tribal areas.