KARACHI: A Pakistani expatriate living in Sweden was arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder of a policeman in the metropolis in November 2022, officials said on Tuesday.

Suspect Khurram Nisar, said to be a son of a former bureaucrat, had fled to Sweden after killing Constable Abdur Rehman in Clifton.

“The man who shot dead police constable Abdur Rehman and then fled to Sweden has been arrested in Stockholm,” announced Chief Minister’s Law Adviser Murtaza Wahab on social media.

SSP-South Syed Asad Raza confirmed the arrest and added that the Nordic police were in touch with the Karachi police over the suspect’s arrest.

He added that the process to bring back the suspect to the city to face trial was being expedited.

According to Swedish media, Charlotta Stege Unger, a senior prosecutor at the National Unit against International and Organised Crime, had decided last month to arrest suspect Nisar. “We have cooperated with Pakistan police in the investigation and will continue to do so,” Stege Unger was quoted as having told the Swedish language newspaper, Expressen.se.

A court in Stockholm decided that Nisar should be detained as a suspect.

“He was detained because there is a risk that he will flee Sweden when the murder charges are also being investigated here and that he could complicate the murder investigation if he is not detained with restrictions on contacting the outside world,” according to Swedish media.

It added that the suspect denied the crime at a detention hearing in Stockholm.

Earlier in November last, the two policemen tasked with tackling street crime were patrolling on a motorbike in Clifton, Block-5 when they intercepted the suspect’s car over suspicion that he was trying to ‘abduct a girl’. One of the cops sat in the suspect’s car and they had a heated exchange that resulted in an armed stand-off between the two. The suspect refused to go to a police station and fired at the cop, killing him on the spot.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2023