Police to release sketch in US kidnap hunt

LAHORE: Punjab police said Tuesday they would shortly release a sketch of one of the suspects wanted for kidnapping an American aid expert at gunpoint in the scramble for leads.

Warren Weinstein, 70, country director for US-based consultancy J.E. Austin Associates and who had been in Pakistan for seven years, was snatched from his home in the eastern city of Lahore before dawn on Saturday. He had been due to return to the United States on Monday after concluding his contract on private-sector development and economic growth in the frontline state in the war on Al-Qaeda, rife with anti-Americanism.

"We have prepared a sketch of one of the kidnappers," senior police official Atif Hayat, involved in the investigation, told AFP. "We are trying to prepare sketches of the other culprits based on descriptions given by the (American's) security guards and driver," he said.

Police have drawn a blank over the kidnapping that saw Weinstein struck on the head with a pistol and driven off by gunmen.