'Honor killing' another name for murder 01:10
(CNN)A British woman murdered in a suspected "honor killing" incident in Pakistan was raped before her death, Pakistani police say.
And
a local policeman who first investigated the 28-year-old's death has
been arrested on suspicion of suppressing evidence from witnesses and
allowing key suspects to flee the country, Abubakar Khuda Bux, deputy
inspector general of Lahore police told CNN.
Samia
Shahid, from Bradford, England, was visiting family in the Jhelum
district in Pakistan's northern Punjab province in July when she was
killed.
Her relatives initially
told local police she had a heart attack, but a post-mortem showed she
had been strangled, Punjab police spokeswoman Nabeela Ghazanfar told
CNN.
Haq Nawaz, Shahid's uncle,
has been taken into police custody in Jhelum for trying to cover up how
his niece was killed. Ghazanfar told CNN he tried to mislead police by
telling them the murdered beautician had died of natural causes.
Shahid's
former husband, Chaudhry Muhammad Shakeel, was held on suspicion of
murder, and confessed last month to having strangled her to death with
her scarf, Ghazanfar said. Shakeel was also Shahid's first cousin.
The
dead woman's father, Chaudhary Shahid, has also been remanded on
suspicion of having been an accessory to her murder, Ghazanfar said.
He
is accused of having lured his daughter to Pakistan under false
pretenses when she was murdered. Ghazanfar told CNN that both men will
be prosecuted for the Briton's murder at a court hearing next week.
Widower: 'I want justice'
Shahid's
second husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, told CNN he believed his wife was
killed in a so-called honor killing, because her family disapproved of
their marriage.
Slain Briton Samia Shahid and her second husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam.
He
said his late wife's father had summoned her to Pakistan from Dubai,
where the couple had been living for 16 months, by claiming to have been
seriously unwell.
He said he believed his late wife's immediate family were aware of the plan to murder her.
"I'm
devastated," he said, "I want justice for Samia. Women have their own
rights and own will. They are not prisoners. Killing a daughter is not
the solution."
The slain woman's mother and sister are believed to have left Pakistan and are wanted by police for questioning, Bux said.
Samia Shahid and her second husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, had lived in Dubai for 16 months before her death.
British
lawmaker Naz Shah, who was Shahid's local member of parliament, wrote
to the Pakistani government in July asking for help to bring the
perpetrators to justice.
On
hearing that Shahid had been raped before being murdered, she told CNN:
"This just adds to the depth of this crime and the levels of evilness.
I'm pleased to hear the inspector in charge of the local police station
has been arrested for allowing Samia's mother and sister to abscond."
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