PESHAWAR: The accused in the Bashir Ahmad Bilour murder case confessed to facilitating the suicide bomber who had attacked the popular Awami National Party (ANP) leader in 2012 near Han Raziq police station in Peshawar.

In Dec 2012, Bilour and at least eight other people were killed and 17 injured in a suicide bomb explosion in Peshawar's Qissa Khwani Bazaar area.

Read more: Bashir Bilour assassinated: Secretary, 7 others die in blast

An official of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Counter Terrorism Department said Friday that suspect Fazal Muhammad had, during investigations, admitted to hosting the suicide bomber named Farooq at his residence for two days. On the third day, Fazal claimed that Farooq had left to carry out the suicide attack on Bilour.

The acquisition of this information is regarded as an important development in the case. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had claimed responsibility for killing Bilour whose outspokenness had made him a lot of enemies among the militants.

The then-TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed that the attack was "revenge for the martyrdom of one of our elder militants Sheikh Naseeb Khan".