Scotland Yard seeks custody of Imran Farooq murder suspects

LONDON/ISLAMABAD: The London Metropolitan Police has approached the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for permission to seek custody of three key suspects in Pakistan implicated in the Imran Farooq murder investigation, sources told Geo News on Friday.

Informed sources said that if CPS grants the request, then Scotland Yard could ask Pakistan to hand over the custody of the suspects in the case — Khalid Shamim, Mohsin Ali Syed and Moazzam Ali.

In an earlier meeting with Federal Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, British authorities had only asked for custody of suspect Moazzam Ali. However, Pakistan was of the view that it would hand over the custody of all three suspects and not just one, sources said.

Earlier this week, a six-member team of Scotland Yard investigators visited Islamabad to meet with officials at the headquarters of the Federal Investigative Agency (FIA).

Reliable sources told our correspondent in Islamabad that FIA Director Mazharullah Kakakhel convinced the British team to seek custody of all three suspects.

They further revealed that if CPS refuses the request for custody, then the trial would continue in Pakistan instead.

Imran Farooq, 50, a founding member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), was stabbed and beaten to death in Edgware, northwest London, as he returned home from work on September 16, 2010.

Farooq was a close confidant of MQM chief Altaf Hussain and a senior party leader when he fled the country in 1992, following an operation by security forces launched against the MQM.

He was living in North London after claiming political asylum and had reportedly later become an inactive member of the party, which has also recently been the focus of a money laundering investigation in the UK.