JAKARTA: A Pakistani national who was on Interpol’s wanted list for nine years has been arrested by Indonesian police in North Sumatra.
According to a press release by the police’s Mobile Brigade (Brimob), the 34-year-old man, identified as Muhammad Luqman Butt, alias Husein Shah or M. Firman, was arrested at his rented house in Asahan district on Tuesday.
His Indonesian wife, 33-year-old Evi Lili Midati, has also been detained.
The police said Butt confessed he had murdered four people in Pakistan and has been in Indonesia for the past two years. Some five months ago, he moved to Asahan, not far from the province’s capital of Medan to work as a driver.
The police chief investigator in the province, Andi Rian, said the fugitive was arrested at the request of Pakistan, in coordination with Interpol, local media reported.
“After we identified that the fugitive is in Indonesia, the Interpol national central bureau in Indonesia coordinated with the North Sumatra police to arrest him,” Rian was quoted as saying.
Rian added that Butt will be deported to Pakistan where he would face prosecution.
The police seized from Butt’s house his Indonesian identity card bearing the name M. Firman with his photo, and citing Asahan as his place of birth.
Butt confessed he had murdered a family of four when he was 25 years old. He committed the murder in retaliation for the killing of his brother by one of the victims and had been on the run ever since. Two years ago, he entered Indonesia by sea, on a wooden boat from Malaysia.
