Sara Sharif’s relatives held by police want to ‘resolve matters’, says lawyer

The father of Sara Sharif, the 10-year-old girl found dead at her home last month, wants to “resolve matters”, his lawyer has said.

Urfan Sharif, his partner Beinash Batool and brother Faisal Malik travelled to Pakistan a day before police discovered Sara’s body in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August.

They were detained and arrested on suspicion of murder after arriving back in the UK on Wednesday night.

The trio landed at Gatwick Airport on an Emirates flight from Pakistan, via Dubai, and were taken to Guildford police station.

Surrey Police confirmed two men, aged 41 and 28 and a 29-year-old woman are currently in custody.

Sara was found dead at her home after a man identifying himself as her father called 999 from Pakistan.

A post-mortem examination last month revealed she had “suffered multiple and extensive injuries” that were “likely to have been caused over a sustained and extended period of time”.

Her cause of death has yet to be determined – but an inquest has heard it is “likely to be unnatural”.

In a statement on Thursday, the family lawyer referred to the footage and said they wanted to resolve the situation.

Attiq Malik, from Liberty Law, said: “As many are aware, a video was released setting out concerns by them of Pakistan police, and their intention to resolve matters.

“We were contacted by them and the next steps to resolve matters is to of course come back to the UK, the difficulty being that you couldn’t do that without being in touch with the authorities there.

“So the next step was simply to facilitate their return.”

He added: “We got in touch with the police here, we got in touch with various travel agents, and long story short – they’ve arrived.

“And the next step really is just to resolve matters, using the rule of law, and see what happens next.”