PESHAWAR: The police recovered the body of an Italian citizen from a flat in Nasir Bagh area on the outskirts of the provincial capital on Sunday night.

They said Joshua Vargas, who had landed at Bacha Khan International Airport via a Saudi Airline flight on Oct 8, was found dead at a residential flat.

The police said the Italian was visiting the provincial capital and was residing in a flat rented by his friends, who Vargas met online. They added though his friends were not arrested, they were part of the case investigation.

“His friends tried to talk to him but Vargas was not receiving calls since his mobile phone was switched off. His friends came to his flat to check why his cell phone was switched off,” a police official said, adding the flat’s main door was open with a note affixed to it saying, ‘don’t open, call police.’

The official said Vargas’s friends called the police, which rushed to the spot. He said the police found another note in the flat with ‘keys are in the kitchen’ written on it. He added the police took the keys and opened the door to the room, where they found Vargas’s body hanging.

“It is premature to say if Vargas died by suicide, but the evidence available leads us towards it [suicide],” SP Warsak division Arshad Khan told Dawn, adding there were no torture marks on the body. He said the police were awaiting the postmortem report to determine the exact cause of his death.

He said the Foreign Office in Islamabad had been informed about the incident.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2023