Arshad Sharif’s murder was ‘planned’: fact-finding committee

ISLAMABAD, Dec 05 (NNI): Senior journalist and anchorperson Arshad Sharif was deliberately killed and his attackers knew full well who he was before pulling the trigger.
This has been determined by the fact-finding committee formed by the government on Arshad Sharif’s murder in Kenya on October 23.
The fact-finding committee, which comprised investigators from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) , had traveled to Kenya and Dubai in search of answers relating to Arshad Sharif’s movements, the people he interacted and why did he take the decisions he took.
Towards the end of their mission, they prepared a report which was then submitted to the Federal Interior Ministry for onward processing.
In their report, the investigators dismissed the view that Arshad Sharif was killed due to mistaken identity as a kidnapper who was fleeing from a police picket near rural Nairobi in Kenya.
Instead, they said that his murder had been ‘planned’.
The committee further said that they could not find any evidence to establish the theory that he had been killed as a result of ‘mistaken identity’.
The report stated that Arshad Sharif in the weeks prior to his murder and after leaving Pakistan, he had been in contact with more than a dozen people spread across Pakistan, Dubai and Kenya.
The report added that two suspects, Khurram and Waqar, were said to be friends of the slain journalist and were among the last people he was close to before his murder. The report called for further investigating these two suspects ‘thoroughly’, adding that they were reluctant to provide evidence about the high profile murder.
The report also included a statement from Dubai Visa Officer Arsalan Dasti.
Arshad Sharif had been shot in the chest and head allegedly by police after he and his driver had driven through a police roadblock on a dirt road outside of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The police had claimed that Sharif, along with his driver, was driving from Magadi Town to Nairobi when they were flagged down at the roadblock manned by five police officers.
But when Arshad Sharif’s driver did not stop and ran the blockade, police fired at the vehicle killing Arshad Sharif.
However, autopsy showed that Arshad Sharif was shot from far too close a range compared to what was being claimed by Kenyan police.
Subsequently, Kenyan Police said that the Independent Policing Oversight Authority would take over the case.
According to police deputed at the roadblock, they had received a tip-off to intercept a car similar to the one Sharif was traveling in following a carjacking incident in Pangani area of Nairobi and the possibility of a kidnapping. NNI