Salmaan Taseer's Assassin Had Told Others About Plans

At WSJ, "Pakistan Killer Had Revealed Plans: Assignment, Role of Other Guards Probed; Islamists Call Governor's Assassin a Hero":

The killing of a senior politician who spoke out against Pakistan's blasphemy laws was widely lauded by Islamist groups and sympathizers Wednesday and it emerged that the assassin, a member of an elite police force, had told others about the pending attack but had still been assigned to his victim's detail.

Malik Mumtaz Qadri pumped multiple rounds Tuesday into Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab province, at a shopping complex in an upscale part of Islamabad. He later told police he was angered by Mr. Taseer's efforts to abrogate the country's strict blasphemy laws.

Mr. Qadri had previously been removed from a branch of the police dealing with counterterrorism due to concerns about his Islamist leanings, and had himself come forward to ask to guard Mr. Taseer, a senior police official said.

Preliminary investigations also have revealed that Mr. Qadri informed other police officers of his plans, the official said. Police have detained a dozen other people, including six police officers who were also on guard duty and are suspected of abetting the crime after they failed to stop the shooting of Mr. Taseer.

Investigations are focusing on Mr. Qadri's links with Dawat-i-Islami, a radical Islamist group that has been at the forefront of protests in recent weeks against efforts to change the blasphemy laws, the police official said. Mr. Taseer's death has exposed a deep fissure in Pakistan society between liberal politicians with Western lifestyles and religious leaders who hew to an Islamist view of the world and are gaining influence.

More at the link.