PAKISTANI Taliban militants released a graphic video on Sunday showing the beheading of a Polish engineer whom they said was killed because Islamabad refused to free detained insurgents.
The tape, seen by an AFP correspondent here, was released one day after a spokesman for Pakistan's umbrella Taliban group said its men had decapitated Piotr Stanczak, who was kidnapped in the volatile northwest on September 28.
Stanczak, who was working in Pakistan for a Polish energy company, was seized by armed men in the town of Attock, about 70km northwest of the capital Islamabad. His two drivers and bodyguard were killed.
Polish deputy foreign minister Jacek Najder earlier said authorities in Warsaw were still awaiting official confirmation of Stanczak's killing by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Prime Minister Donald Tusk previously said Poland had received "informal confirmation" of the engineer's death, while a spokesman for the Polish embassy in Islamabad said it considered the TTP claim to be "99.99 per cent true".
The video shows Stanczak sitting cross-legged on a carpet, wearing a khaki shalwar kameez. He made a brief statement in English in response to questions posed by his captors, urging his government to withdraw its contingent of about 1100 troops from Afghanistan.
In the next scene, Stanczak is sitting in the same position, but blindfolded. A masked man is shown beheading him with a knife, while two men stand guard behind him, holding AK-47s at the hostage's head.
A masked militant is then shown saying Stanczak was killed because Taliban prisoners were not released and warning that other foreign hostages could meet the same fate, without claiming to have specific hostages in captivity.
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