ISLAMABAD: A fugitive suspected of instigating the murder of Pakistani model and social media star Qandeel Baloch has been extradited from Saudi Arabia, Interior Ministry officials revealed on Thursday.
Muzaffar Iqbal was arrested by Interpol and handed over to Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday before being transferred into the custody of police authorities in the city of Multan, Abdul Aziz Uqaili, the ministry’s additional secretary and spokesman, told Arab News.
Uqaili said that Iqbal had been moved from the Kingdom to Pakistan with the help of Interpol’s National Central Bureau in Riyadh.
Baloch, 26, who rose to prominence with her videos on social media networks which often challenged social norms in Pakistan, was strangled in July 2016 at her parents’ home in Muzaffargarh in the eastern Punjab province.
Her so-called “honor killing” focused huge attention on the deaths of other Pakistani women at the hands of close family members, placing law enforcement agencies in the country under pressure to act quickly in her case to apprehend her killers.
