LONDON: UK prosecutors have asked Pakistan to trace two suspects believed to have been involved in the 2010 murder of Imran Farooq, a senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), BBC reports.
Documents obtained by BBC Newsnight name the suspects as Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran.
They are believed to be in Pakistani custody but not under formal arrest.
In November 2011 – 14 months after the murder – Metropolitan Police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe said his force was liaising with Pakistani authorities over two arrests believed to have been made in Karachi.
Since then, however, the force has refused to confirm or deny that it is seeking Pakistani assistance.
The Pakistani government has denied anyone has been arrested and officials have failed to respond to questions about the request from the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.
The documents, obtained by Newsnight from official sources in Pakistan, suggest Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran secured UK visas on the basis of being granted admission to the London Academy of Management Sciences (LAMS), in east London.
Mohsin Ali Syed, in his late 20s, arrived in the UK in February 2010. He moved between a number of London addresses, including bedsits in Tooting, in south London, and Whitchurch Lane, in Edgware.
Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran arrived in the UK in early September 2010. Phone records indicate the two moved around together and it is believed they kept Mr Farooq under surveillance.
The murder weapons were left at the scene of the crime and the documents seen by Newsnight state that the British authorities are seeking DNA samples as evidence that could be used in a British court.
Records show that both men left the UK on 16 September 2010, a few hours after the murder had happened, and flew to Sri Lanka, and then on to Karachi on the 19 September.
According to immigration officials in Pakistan, security officials picked them up on the tarmac before they left Karachi airport. Pakistani security sources deny that the men were picked up as a result of a British tip-off.
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