Pakistan arrests prominent Al Qaeda financier

Islamabad - Much of Al Qaeda's senior leadership fled to Pakistan following the 2001 US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities have arrested an Al Qaeda financier who has been on a UN sanctions list since 2012, police said Monday.
Abdur Rehman Sindhi was detained during a raid by intelligence agencies in the southern port city of Karachi last week, said police officer Muqaddas Haider. He said a joint team of police and intelligence agents was questioning the suspect on what role he might have played in militant attacks in Pakistan in recent years.
Sindhi appeared before a court which allowed the police to interrogate him for two weeks, the police official said. He said he didn't have any evidence so far that the suspect was linked to the US reporter Daniel Pearl's 2002 killing.
Much of Al Qaeda's senior leadership fled to Pakistan following the 2001 US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.
Also Monday, police said that a Sikh lawmaker gunned down last week was killed by a political rival from the minority community, who was arrested along with five other suspects.
The Pakistani Taleban had claimed responsibility for the killing of Sardar Suran Singh, who was gunned down while heading home on Friday night in northwestern Pakistan.
But police said the killing was ordered by Baldev Kumar, a rival Sikh politician, who paid assassins around $10,000 to carry out the shooting.

• Pakistan