Aamir Ullah Khan with wife Nazia Amir and children Romana, Haider and Adam. Source: News Limited
THE nephew of an Australian-Pakistani woman murdered with her husband and three children in Islamabad has confessed to the brutal killings, police say.
Sikandar Zia, 27, and three other men were was arrested by local police overnight, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan.
Police said Zia admitted he murdered his relatives with the help of professional killers in order to seize the family's property.
Aamir Ullah Khan and his children Romana, 17, Adam, 14, and Haider, 7, all dual Australian Pakistani nationals were found strangled and dumped in bushes in Bhoray Shah, in Islamabad's middle-class southern outskirts last Monday morning.
Local police said the former Glen Waverley residents were bound with rope and strangled to death with wire.
The body of Nazia Amir, Mr Khan's wife, was found in a nearby suburb.
Inspector General of Islamabad Police Sikandar Hayyat told media it had received information about Zia's involvement from "different sources".
Police had obtained CCTV footage capturing Zia travelling through the gates of Bahria Town, where the family lived, and coming back out in Aamir's car.
The family's servant, Asghar, was also killed.
Earlier, local police suggested the family was murdered in a bitter dispute over inherited land.
Members of Mr Khan's extended family stood to inherit the land if he and his children died.
A friend of the slain family urged them to move back to Australia before their deaths.
Speaking to the Herald Sun, Hanif Khan, a Pakistani expat who now lives in Melbourne, said he urged his friends to move back to Melbourne for safety.
Mr Hanif Khan said his friend had purchased a gun to protect his family in recent weeks.
"This is very common in Pakistan, it is a symptom of the poverty, it is not safe there for rich people," he said.
Mr Khan said his friend was an executive director at a telecommunications company, Mobillinc, and had wanted to transfer to Australia, but could not find a job.
"He was thinking about getting his kids to study here, his job there was very good, he couldn't get a job here," he said.
The slain man owned properties across Melbourne, and regularly visited, his friend said the family had lived in Melbourne in Glen Waverley from 2000-2005.
The two eldest children Romana and Adam were born in Australia.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said the Australian High Commission in Pakistan was working with authorities on the investigation.
They extended sympathies to the family and warned Australian's to reconsider travelling to the area at this time.
Mr Hanif Khan said he was devastated at the news, and that a "lovely" family had been taken for no reason.
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