Can't the paper say "Middle Eastern"?No. It is a British paper. It was not written for a non-British audience as its target. It is not how the language is used here. Middle Eastern would definitely not be Pakistani.
What difference does it make to you where the taxi driver was from? He was a human and these thugs killed him. End of story.
The reason that I noted that "Middle Eastern" was left out is that it would be PC (at least here in America--and thank you for telling me that it is a British paper) to try to downplay as much aa possible the very existence of Middle Eastern (which is synonymous with "Muslim") people in one's country.
That's all.