Third Westerner killed in such a fashion in Pakistan
The beheaded body of a kidnapped British doctor working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was found on Sunday, police and Red Cross officials stated.
Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was kidnapped by suspected militants on Jan. 5. Police found Dale’s beheaded body by the roadside on Sunday in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta. Dale was found wrapped in a white plastic bag. His name was written on the bag with a black marker.
“A sharp knife was used to sever his head from the body,” said Safdar Hussain, the first doctor to examine the body. “He was killed about 12 hours ago.”
Dale had worked for the ICRC and the British Red Cross in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq before going to Pakistan. He had been managing a health program for Baluchistan for almost a year at the time of his abduction.
“We are devastated,” ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord said. “Khalil was a trusted and very experienced Red Cross staff member who significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause.”
“This was a senseless and cruel act, targeting someone whose role was to help the people of Pakistan and causing immeasurable pain to those who knew Mr. Dale,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement.
The Pakistani foreign office said they are committed to combat terrorism and hold the killers of Mr. Dale accountable. “The government of Pakistan condemns this barbaric act in the strongest terms and is determined to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice,” noted the foreign office in a statement.
A senior police officer said the Pakistan Taliban had claimed responsibility for the killing, saying a ransom had not been paid. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak were killed in the same fashion in 2002 and 2009.
