PESHAWAR, May 25: The family of a Spanish researcher murdered two years ago and buried in far northwest Pakistan returned home empty-handed this week after failing to persuade local elders to let them exhume his body, police said on Tuesday.

Jordi Magraner, who lived for more than 10 years in the Chitral valley in the Hindukush carrying out a research work on a rumoured Yeti-like creature known locally as Ice Man, was found murdered in his cottage, his throat slit, in 2002.

The local Kalash tribe, a non-Muslim people who worship deities similar to ancient Greek gods and goddesses, buried the 35-year-old according to their traditional funeral rites.

But when Magraner's siblings travelled to Chitral from Spain earlier this month to retrieve his body, Kalash elders said exhumation would violate their beliefs. "The brothers and sisters of Jordi Magraner came from Spain three days ago to take his body for burial in Spain but the elders of Kalash people opposed it," Chitral police chief Mohammad Saeed Khan told AFP by telephone.

Kalash elders told Magraner's family that he had embraced their religion and stated in his will that he should be buried according to Kalash customs in Bombourete valley near Chitral, some 170 kilometres northeast of Peshawar.

"Magraner's family members did not press for the exhumation of his body but asked for his belongings which were handed over to them by the locals." Magraner's belongings comprised his research work on the Ice Man, camera, compact disc, cassettes, laptop and papers, he said.

Police suspect Magraner was murdered by one of his servants, who fled the area and has never been captured. The Kalash people were encountered by Alexander and his Macedonian army when they invaded the area in 327 B.C. and many Kalash claim to be descendants of Alexander's troops.

Kalash villagers held a three-day funeral ceremony for Magraner. Local police at the time said they received a fax from his brother asking that funeral rites be performed by Magraner's local friends, as the researcher had requested in his will. However the brother, who gave his first name as Andres, told AFP in France that the family wanted his remains sent home.