The family of a top al-Qaeda suspect killed by security forces yesterday appealed to Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf -- a man he was accused of trying to assassinate twice -- to release the body for burial.
Amjad Hussain Farooqi was shot and killed after an armed stand-off in the southern town of Nawabshah on Sunday.
The operation was hailed by Musharraf on Monday as a breakthrough in Pakistan's crackdown against al-Qaeda.
Farooqi's elder brother yesterday pleaded for the Pakistani military leader to let them hold a proper Islamic funeral, which requires a quick burial.
"My brother is gone and he will not come back, but at least we have the right to get his body," Mohammed Javed told reporters by telephone from the family's home village near Pir Mahal in eastern Punjab province.
"We appeal to the president to give his body to us."
Musharraf is currently in Europe. Speaking to reporters in the Netherlands about Farooqi on Monday, he said that "a very big terrorist has been eliminated" and predicted it could lead to more high-profile al-Qaeda arrests.
Pakistani authorities said they will probably hold Farooqi's body for another four or five days to complete DNA tests to confirm his identity.
A senior Interior Ministry official said yesterday on condition of anonymity that the body would be returned to the family after that.
Farooqi, believed to have been 32, was accused of planning two bombings targeting Musharraf in December last year near the capital. The president narrowly escaped both attacks, but 17 people were killed in the second bombing.
Farooqi was also believed to have played a key role in the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Karachi, and a string of other terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
US President George W. Bush appeared to allude to Farooqi on Monday, saying "one of the killers of Danny Pearl had been arrested."
He said that 75 percent of the al-Qaeda leadership had been brought to justice.
"One by one, we're finding these people," Bush told a presidential election campaign rally in Springfield, Ohio.
A Pakistani security official, who did not want to be named, said Farooqi had worked as "chief recruiter" of Islamic militants for terrorist attacks after Pakistan threw its support behind the US-led war in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The family of Farooqi say they don't know if he was involved in terrorism. They say he was bullied as a teenager and was sent to college in the hope he would become a military officer.
But he became radicalized by a visit to Kashmir, where he trained with Islamic militants fighting Indian security forces. He later traveled to Afghanistan where he met with al-Qaeda figures.
Pakistani security forces had been hunting for Farooqi since Pearl's kidnapping. They caught up with him after intercepting a mobile telephone call made from Nawabshah last week, an intelligence official said.
He said that when Farooqi was cornered by paramilitary police in Sunday's raid, he was asked to surrender, but returned fire and was shot dead.
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