UK to ‘consider’ help request in Samia Shahid murder case

LONDON/BRADFORD: West Yorkshire Police has said that Pakistani authorities have not yet made any contact with the police here in relation to the murder investigation of Bradford-born British Pakistani girl Samia Shahid in Jhelum but a request to assist the investigation will be “carefully considered”.

A forensic examination of the body of Samia Shahid established on Wednesday she was suffocated to death and there were injury marks on her body, according to reports in Pakistan.

Samia Shahid’s husband Syed Mukhtar Kazam believes that she was the victim of a so-called honour killing because she had rebelled against wishes of the family, divorced her first husband Muhammad Shakeel and married him in Bradford in 2014.

Samia Shahid’s family insisted she died of natural causes but Syed Mukhtar Kazam believes she was killed because of her marriage with him. Shahid's family in Pakistan and Bradford has strongly denied any involvement in her death.

Speaking to The News, a spokesman for the West Yorkshire Police confirmed that Samia Shahid’s mother and sister are in Bradford now. The News understands the duo flew out of Pakistan as soon as the investigation started – following the murder story was first written in this paper and highlighted by Geo News.

The police spokesman said: “We believe they are both in the UK, but this is a Pakistan Police investigation and all enquiries are being directed by the investigating force.”

He added that the West Yorkshire Police was “continuing to liaise with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office regarding their investigation”.

Asked whether Samia Shahid had reported to the Bradford police that she feared for her life after getting married to Syed Mukhtar Kazam, the police spokesman said that she never told the police about threats to her life. “No allegations were made to police concerning immediate threats to her safety.”

The spokesman, however, said that “Samia was spoken to by officers after she was reported missing”. It is understood that Samia was reported missing by her family after she married Kazam and left for Dubai.

The spokesman said: “We can confirm that Samia Shahid was reported missing to West Yorkshire Police on May 14, 2015.”

When asked if anyone has been arrested or spoken to in Bradford, he said:  “No arrests have been made in Bradford in relation to the investigation. Any request from the Pakistan Police for assistance with enquiries will be carefully considered. This is a Pakistan Police investigation.”

Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah, who has campaigned for the case to be thoroughly investigated in Pakistan, said: "We're actually very pleasantly surprised at the way the Pakistan authorities have responded to this and the urgency that they've placed on this investigation, which is quite impressive. The communication, to say we're so far apart, has been pretty good."

It’s understood that if police in Pakistan ask for any extradition in this case through the FCO then the British authorities would be bound to cooperate with the request.

Samia Shahid, 28, a British national who had reportedly been visiting family in Pakistan last month, was found dead on July 20. Her family had claimed she had died of natural causes; however, her second husband Mukhtar Kazam denied the claims. He had maintained that Samia had been killed by her family for ‘honour’.

Earlier on Wednesday, the forensic report of the deceased confirmed that she was murdered and her death was not due to natural causes, according to sources.

The report, stating that Shahid died of suffocation, was handed over to the investigation committee formed on the directives of the Punjab CM last week.

Investigations picked up momentum earlier in the week after her father Chaudhary Shahid was found to have omitted important information in his statement to the police.

According to a copy of his statement obtained by Geo News, Chaudhary Shahid did not mention that Samia’s first husband went missing after the murder.

This omission gave the police new reasons to suspect the father. The police are already probing Samia’s mother and sister in the case.