WARSAW: A former Pakistani lawmaker has been arrested in connection with the Taliban kidnapping and murder of a Polish engineer, the Polish foreign ministry said Sunday.

Shah Abdul Aziz is being questioned in Pakistan over the execution of Piotr Stanczak, 42, who was beheaded in February after being abducted while working in the Asian country.

‘We have been informed of the arrest on May 31 of former parliamentarian Shah Abdul Aziz in connection with the abduction and murder of Stanczak,’ foreign ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski told AFP.

Aziz was ‘very active’ in negotiations with the engineer’s Taliban captors, the spokesman went on.

‘But I would be wary of saying he was behind the kidnapping and murder of the Polish engineer,’ he added.

Polish prosecutors asked to be involved in questioning the suspect but this request was declined, Paszkowski said.

The fresh arrest came 10 days after police captured Attaullah Khan, one of Stanczak’s alleged killers, in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Khan allegedly said Aziz was behind the murder, according to Polish news agency PAP, citing Pakistani media reports.

Stanczak was working as a geologist in Pakistan for a Polish oil and natural gas exploration company when he was seized in the country’s volatile northwest on September 28. His abductors killed his driver and his bodyguard.

His beheading was the first of a Pole by Islamic militants and caused widespread shock and revulsion in Poland.

Polish Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma has accused the Pakistani government of ‘apathy’ towards Taliban militancy in the country. — AFP