Story highlights Samia Shahid's ex-husband has confessed to having strangled her to death

Her widower believes she was murdered in a so-called "honor killing"

(CNN) A British woman murdered in a suspected "honor killing" incident in Pakistan was raped before her death, Pakistani police say.

And a local policeman who first investigated the 28-year-old's death has been arrested on suspicion of suppressing evidence from witnesses and allowing key suspects to flee the country, Abubakar Khuda Bux, deputy inspector general of Lahore police told CNN.

Samia Shahid, from Bradford, England, was visiting family in the Jhelum district in Pakistan's northern Punjab province in July when she was killed.

Her relatives initially told local police she had a heart attack, but a post-mortem showed she had been strangled, Punjab police spokeswoman Nabeela Ghazanfar told CNN.

Haq Nawaz, Shahid's uncle, has been taken into police custody in Jhelum for trying to cover up how his niece was killed. Ghazanfar told CNN he tried to mislead police by telling them the murdered beautician had died of natural causes.

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