WARSAW, Feb 7: Poland has received unofficial confirmation that a Polish engineer kidnapped by the Taliban in Pakistan has been killed, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday.

“We do not have a solid proof but we have received unofficial confirmation that this tragedy indeed took place,” Tusk told reporters in Munich in comments broadcast live on Polish TV.

Piotr Stancza, an engineer for the Polish company Geofizyka Krakow, was kidnapped on Sept 28, 2008, while visiting a site near Attock, about 65 km west of Islamabad.

Gunmen shot dead his Pakistani driver, bodyguard and translator before taking him hostage.

In a press briefing in Warsaw, deputy foreign minister

Jacek Najder said the Pakistani internal affairs ministry had received information from three independent sources the Pole was killed.

A Taliban spokesman said he had been killed on Saturday but the body would not be handed over until captured fighters were released.

A television channel quoted him as saying Stancza was killed because the authorities had failed to free the militants before a deadline that expired at midnight on Friday, but there was no confirmation from Pakistani officials.

An intelligence official in the region, who requested anonymity, said the Taliban had demanded 200,000 rupees ($2,540) for the return of the body. —Reuters