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Sharon Beshenivsky: Man extradited from Pakistan and charged with murder over 2005 killing of PC
A man has been extradited from Pakistan in connection with the killing of PC Sharon Beshenivsky in 2005, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has said.
Piran Ditta Khan, 74, has been extradited to the UK and charged with murder, robbery, two counts of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possessing a prohibited weapon.
PC Beshenivsky was gunned down while responding to a robbery at a travel agent in Bradford in November 2005.
The 38-year-old mother of three children and two stepchildren had only served nine months with West Yorkshire Police when she died.
Her colleague, PC Teresa Millburn, was seriously injured in the same incident.
PC Teresa Milburn was seriously injured
Khan, who was arrested by police in Pakistan in January 2020, has been remanded into custody to appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
The charges against Khan were authorised in 2006, leading to the issuing of the extradition warrant, the CPS said.
Chief crown prosecutor Joanne Jakymec said: “Since Piran Ditta Khan was arrested in Pakistan in 2020, our specialist prosecutors have been working closely with our Pakistani partners to complete the legal process in the country so that he could be extradited back to England to face the allegations from almost 20 years ago.”
Two men, Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah and Yusuf Abdullah Jama, were sentenced to life in prison in 2006 over the shooting of PC Beshenivsky.
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Shah admitted murder but denied firing the shot which killed PC Beshenivsky, while Jama was convicted of murder after he told the court he shot the officer by accident.
A third man, Faisal Razzaq, a 25-year-old from London, was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 11 years.
PC Beshenivsky’s hat sits on her coffin at her funeral on 11 January 2006
A year later, in 2007, a fourth man, Hassan Razzaq, the 26-year-old brother of Faisal, was also convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A fifth man, Mustaf Jama, the brother of Yusuf Jama, was extradited from Somalia in 2007 and found guilty of murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 35 years behind bars.
A memorial was unveiled for PC Beshenivsky at the scene of her killing
PC Beshenivsky, who was the seventh serving female officer ever to be killed in the line of duty in Britain at the time of her death, was killed on her daughter’s fourth birthday.
Bradford came to a standstill for her funeral.
Hundreds of officers lined the route of the cortege, and a memorial was later unveiled at the scene of her death in 2009.