A 74-year-old man has been formally charged in connection with the murder of Police Constable Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford in 2005 after he was extradited from Pakistan. Piran Ditta Khan was flown over on Tuesday, and after arriving in the UK was taken into custody at a West Yorkshire police station, where he was formally charged.
PC Beshenivsky, who had three children and two stepchildren, was fatally shot as she responded with colleague PC Teresa Millburn to an alarm at a travel agent in Morley Street, Bradford in November 2005. PC Millburn was also seriously injured.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorized charges in 2006 against Mr Khan with six offenses including, murder, robbery, two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.
The CPS submitted an extradition warrant in 2006.
He will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court tomorrow.
The extradition was the result of collaborative work between the CPS, Pakistani authorities, West Yorkshire Police and the National Crime Agency.
Joanne Jakymec, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS, said: “A suspect wanted in connection with the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford in 2005 has been extradited to the UK from Pakistan thanks to the continued hard work of prosecutors in the CPS’s Extradition and International Units.
“Since Piran Ditta Khan was arrested in Pakistan in 2020, our specialist prosecutors have been working closely with our Pakistani partners to complete the legal process in the country so that he could be extradited back to England to face the allegations from almost 20 years ago. “
Speaking to The Guardian after she was killed, husband Paul said: “The world is a darker place without her. She was my rock. She was loved by everyone who met her, and my family’s loss is felt by so many.
“It breaks my heart to think I’ll never hear her infectious laugh again, to think she won’t be here to see our children grow.”
He added: “When Sharon left for work on Friday it was such a happy day. Our youngest, Lydia, was celebrating her fourth birthday and she waited excitedly for her mum to come home. When Sharon was late I knew something was wrong.
“The people who did this to Sharon and Teresa, and to our families, are cowards. They took away my wife but they also took away a wonderful mum.”
