British authorities investigating the death of a 10-year-old girl said this Friday that the child’s father, stepmother and uncle were charged with the murder after returning to England from a trip to Pakistan.
Sara Sharif’s body was discovered on August 10 at her family’s home near Woking, southern England. An autopsy revealed that the child had suffered “multiple and extensive injuries” over an extended period of time.
Three people charged with the murder of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, whose body was found at her home address in #Wake up on August 10. Read more here: https://t.co/AYrYqwoNie pic.twitter.com/izUJzdIdDd
– Surrey Police (@SurreyPolice) September 14, 2023
The child’s father, as well as his stepmother and uncle, were arrested at London’s Gatwick Airport on Wednesday evening after disembarking from a flight from Dubai after a month on the run in Pakistan.
According to Surrey Police, Urfan Sharif, 41, his partner Beinash Batool, 29, and his brother Faisal Malik, 28, They fled to Pakistan, where they took refuge in a family home before Sara’s body was found. This led to an international operation to arrest those suspected of the girl’s death.
The child’s father and three family members have been charged with causing or permitting the death of a child, Surrey Police said in a statement. They are in pre-trial detention and have to appear in court on Friday.
A Pakistani police spokesman said earlier that Sharif, Batool and Malik returned to Britain voluntarily, with prior knowledge from authorities.
Surrey Police previously said the three had traveled to Islamabad on August 9, the day before Sara’s body was discovered.
According to investigators, it was the father, from Pakistan, who made an emergency call to police and informed authorities of what had happened to the child.
The house was empty and a manhunt was launched jointly by Interpol and the British Foreign Office, in coordination with Pakistani authorities.
Five of Sara’s alleged siblings, aged between one and 13 and brought to Pakistan with their adults, were discovered on Monday at the home of Urfan Sharif’s father.
Polish mother Olga Sharif said she could barely recognize her daughter’s small, battered body when she identified her at the morgue last month.
Olga and Urfan separated in 2015, and Sara and her older brother went to live with their mother until a family court ruled in 2019 that they should live with their father, according to British media.
Source: DN
