LONDON: A 75-year-old man who was extradited from Pakistan was on Thursday convicted of the murder of a UK police officer nearly 20 years ago.
Piran Ditta Khan fled Britain after the shooting of police constable Sharon Beshenivsky who was killed as she tried to foil a robbery at a travel agency in November 2005.
The rare fatal shooting of a police officer on duty in Britain triggered widespread shock and revived calls for police to routinely carry guns.
Khan is the last of the seven men involved in the raid in Bradford in northern England to be convicted.
Prosecutors said the former takeaway boss was the group’s ringleader.
Although he did not leave the safety of a lookout car during the raid he played a “pivotal” role in planning it and knew that loaded firearms were to be used.
This made him guilty of Beshenivsky’s murder “as surely as if he had pulled the trigger on that pistol himself,” prosecutors said.
Khan was convicted by a majority of 10-1 jurors at Leeds Crown Court in northern England.
Beshenivsky, who was 38 and had three children and two step children, was gunned down on her youngest daughter’s fourth birthday. She had been a police officer for just nine months.
Her female colleague Teresa Milburn was shot in the chest in the incident but survived. Neither officer was armed.
Police superintendent Marc Bowes welcomed the verdict as the “culmination of 18 years of hard work, tenacious grit and determination to bring Khan before the courts.”
“Today as always our thoughts remain with PC Sharon Beshenivsky and her family, Sharon went to work to protect the public, she responded to a call for help alongside her colleague Teresa but tragically never came home,” he added.
Khan, who was arrested in Pakistan in January 2020, was extradited to the UK last April.
The other six gang members have previously been jailed in connection with the shooting, including a Somali national who was sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in jail.
Man extradited from Pakistan convicted of killing UK police officer
https://arab.news/z5rmt
Man extradited from Pakistan convicted of killing UK police officer
- Piran Ditta Khan fled Britain after the shooting of police constable Sharon Beshenivsky during a robbery in 2005
- Beshenivsky, a 38-year-old mother of five children, was gunned down on her youngest daughter’s fourth birthday
Pakistan’s Sharif congratulates Bangladesh PM hopeful on ‘resounding victory’ in election
- At 60, BNP’s Tarique Rahman is preparing to take charge of Bangladesh, driven by what he calls an ambition to ‘do better’
- The election comes nearly a year and half after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina in a deadly uprising in the South Asian nation
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday congratulated Tarique Rahman on the “resounding victory” of his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in parliamentary elections, saying that he looked forward to working closely with the new Bangladeshi leadership.
A year and a half after the deadly uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s iron-fisted regime, the BNP said they had a won a “sweeping victory” in parliamentary elections held on Thursday.
Final results are still to come, but the United States was swift to offer its congratulations to Rahman and the BNP for an “historic victory,” its embassy in Dhaka said.
At 60, BNP leader Rahman is preparing to take charge of the South Asian nation of 170 million people, driven by what he calls an ambition to “do better.”
“I extend my warmest felicitations to Mr. Tarique Rahman on leading the BNP to a resounding victory in the Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh,” Sharif said on X.
“I also congratulate the people of Bangladesh on the successful conduct of the elections.”
Sharif’s statement also comes amid Islamabad’s efforts to rebuild relations with Bangladesh, amid a thaw in relations between the two countries. Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of the same country until Bangladesh’s secession following a bloody civil war in 1971, an event that long cast a shadow over bilateral ties.
Both countries have moved closer since August 2024, following the ouster of Hasina who was considered an India ally. While Pakistan-Bangladesh ties warm up, relations between Dhaka and New Delhi remain strained over India’s decision to grant asylum to Hasina.
“I look forward to working closely with the new Bangladesh leadership to further strengthen our historic, brotherly multifaceted bilateral relations and advance our shared goals of peace, stability, and development in South Asia and beyond,” Sharif said.
