LAHORE, Oct 20: The CIA police claim to have solved the mystery of Salvation Army territorial commander Bo Brekke’s murder by rounding up his colleague, Maj Younis Joseph, and two hired assassins who confessed to killing the victim.

Capital City Police Officer Malik Muhammad Iqbal told a press conference on Saturday that FIR complainant Maj Peter was on his way home after attending a function of the Salvation Army chief secretary when he heard a gunshot in the building. He went to the building and found Bo Brekke lying in a pool of blood. Driven to hospital, Bo Brekke breathed his last after some time.

Maj Peter had lodged a report with the Civil Lines police and nominated Salvation Army’s Maj Younis Joseph as accused, he said, adding that the police grilled him and other suspects. Younis, in the meantime, escaped the custody and the Civil Lines police registered a case against him.

Led by information, he said a specially-constituted team headed by CIA SP Chaudhry Masood Aziz arrested Major Younis who was planning to go abroad on Oct 19. During the course of interrogation, the accused confessed that he had hired two assassins, Sohail Javed Masih and Wajahat Masih alias Ali to kill Bo Brekke.

He said he paid Rs100,000 to Wajahat for his sister’s marriage and promised Sohail that he would get released his brother involved in double murder by compensating the complainants. Later, Maj Younis gave Rs16,000 to the hired assassins to purchase arms and called them at his office to identify Brekke.

On the day of the incident, the hired assassins hid in a deserted store in the building and overpowered the victim at the entrance of his office, fired three shots at him and rode away from the back gate. Later, Maj Younis paid Rs100,000 to the two accused in Islamabad.

The CCPO quoted the accused as disclosing that a Christian colony in Islamabad was demolished by the Capital Development Authority in 1999. On the recommendations of Maj Younis, who was then serving as Salvation Army divisional commander, the executive committee of the Salvation Army Headquarters, Lahore, acquired a 17-kanal land for homeless families and he received illegal money from the families in the name of allotment.

Bo Brekke came to know about the corruption and transferred Maj Younis to Lahore and he had been nurturing grudge against his boss ever since.

He said the hired assassins were also wanted by the Islamabad police in various cases. —APP