Piotr Stanczak did not exhibit the slightest hint of hesitation when the Pakistani Taliban asked him to choose between execution and conversion to Islam.
Whether the Polish geologist acted out of pride or religious conviction, his choice bewildered his killers and keep them talking about him with respect after his murder.
Stanczak, 42, was kidnapped on Sept. 28 on his way to survey for oil exploration in Attock district in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab. The kidnappers also killed his driver and two guards.
Militants released a gruesome seven-minute video in early February showing his beheading. One of the murderers blamed the Pakistani government, which failed to accept their demands for the release of detained militants.
Warsaw reacted angrily, slammed Islamabad’s “apathy” in tackling terrorism and offering a 1 million zloty (US$300,000) reward for information leading to the capture of the Taliban militants who beheaded Stanczak.
Among the militants whose release was sought by the Taliban was Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-Pakistani who was sentenced to death for the 2002 abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
FORMER HOSTAGE
When negotiations between the representatives of the Pakistani government and the kidnappers failed, the Taliban leadership gave the Polish man a last chance to save himself, Stanczak’s captors revealed to another hostage, a Pakistani man named Mohammad Amir.
Amir — a pseudonym, as he asked for anonymity to avoid possible repercussions — was released recently after his family paid 1 million rupees (US$25,000) to agents of Taliban commander Tariq Afridi.
Afridi heads a small group of Taliban in the Orakzai tribal district and is loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of the local Taliban who has a US$5 million bounty on his head for being an al-Qaeda facilitator. Pakistani troops have recently been ordered to take decisive action against Mehsud.
In an interview in Attock, Amir said he was kept in the same cell where Stanczak was held for a month before the Polish man was decapitated.
Amir said Taliban soldiers guarding the two-story prison building in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal district bordering Afghanistan, frequently chatted with him and one day they mentioned the abduction and killing of Stanczak.
HIGH-PROFILE TARGET
“Our people were keeping an eye on his movements for several months. We were expecting that we could exchange some of our mujahidin in the government’s custody for him,” Amir quoted a guard as saying.
Because Stanczak was a high-profile target, the Taliban made extensive preparations to kidnap and shift him to a safe place from Attock, some 100km from Islamabad.
“You know the Indus River lies between Attock and North Western Frontier Province [NWFP] and our people could not use the bridge to cross it because it is heavily guarded. So we bought a boat to transport Piotr across the border,” the guard, who identified himself as Abdullah, told Amir.
From NWFP, Stanczak was moved to the Tirah Valley of the adjoining Khyber tribal district, and a month later to the Taliban’s stronghold of South Waziristan, a 14-hour drive through muddy mountain tracks.
“Piotr never showed any sign of nervousness or fear. He would finish the food we gave him and sleep well. We all admired his courage. It was not an easy decision even for our commander to kill Piotr,” Abdullah said. “That’s why he gave him a last chance.”
“But he was very stubborn and refused our goodwill gesture to save his life,” Amir cited Abdullah as saying. “Piotr said first we should release him. He will go back to his country, consult his family and read about Islam and only then decide about converting to Islam.”
“This surprised everyone, but we had to kill him because principles are principles — we gave him a chance and he lost it,” the guard told Amir. “But undoubtedly he was a brave man.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion