Pakistan Asks Kenya For Its Findings On Journalist Who Was Shot Dead

Pakistan government has called on Kenyan authorities to share details and investigation reports concerning the murder of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya last month, Geo News reported on Monday.

Pakistan has called on the Kenyan authorities to share information about the telephone calls and the history of the three owners of AmmoDump Training Camp, which was the shooting range in the incident.

The site was owned by Waqar Ahmed, his wife Morin Waqar, and Khurram Ahmed over a large part of hilly land in a deserted area.

Geo News reported citing Kenya's National Police Service that it has received a letter from the Pakistan government asking for help in several areas to assist the murder inquiry of Sharif who was killed by the General Service Unit (GSU) armed officers.

The Pakistan government has also asked the Kenyan Police to provide its finding on Sharif's killing. It has asked to provide details like names and contact details of the instructors and trainers who were getting training at AmmoDump Training Camp at the time of the shooting.

The Pakistan investigators have also asked the Kenya police to share the name, rank, call and contact details of the police officers involved, the ballistic report related to the incident and the initial statement of the accused officers.

According to Geo News, the Pakistani investigation team has returned to Pakistan after completing the investigation. But, during their stay in Nairobi, they met with Kenyan police officers, intelligence officers and several government functionaries. They also visited Sharif's killing spot as well as the shooting range AmmoDump.

Investigators investigating the killing of journalist Sharif have asked brothers Waqar and Khurram to provide CCTV footage of the apartment in Nairobi where Ashraf stayed and the training site out of Nairobi where Sharif was last seen alive before his tragic killing.

Arshad Sharif, 49, a senior Pakistani journalist was killed in cold blood on October 24 in Kenya when he was driving from Magadi to Nairobi, accompanied by his brother Khurram Ahmed at around 10 pm.

Arshad Sharif's case is not the first in which a Pakistani journalist has been threatened, tortured, intimidated, or killed in questionable circumstances; in the past, local security agencies have targeted activists and journalists like Saleem Shahzad and Hamid Mir for their alleged "anti-military" stance. Somehow, this incident has prompted worries about the safety of Pakistani journalists

Highlighting a report from Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Voices of Vienna underlined that Pakistan has a history of media blackouts and suppression of dissenting voices. It is 157 among 180 countries on its World Press Freedom Index list.

Since Shehbaz Sharif took over as prime minister in late April, several Pakistani journalists have reported intimidation by army-related agencies.

Pakistan is one of the world's deadliest countries for journalists, with three to four murders each year that are often linked to corruption or illegal trafficking and go completely unpunished, according to a Paris-based media watchdog.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has cautioned the Pakistan army's high command against harassment of the media.

Any journalist who crosses the red lines dictated by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) is liable to be the target of in-depth surveillance that could lead to abduction and detention for varying lengths of time in the state's prisons or less official jails.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)