ISLAMABAD: The widow of the slain journalist Arshad Sharif has filed a case against the Kenyan Elite police unit for the murder of her husband in Kenya.
In her petition, Javeria Siddique made the Attorney General of Kenya, the National Police Service of the country, and the Director of Public Prosecution respondents. She urged that the officers involved in Sharif’s murder should be put on trial and punished for their crime.
She urged the court to issue directives to the Kenyan Attorney General (AG) to apologize to Sharif’s family within seven days of the court’s orders, admit the facts, accept responsibility, and issue a written apology at the public level.
Arshad Sharif’s widow, while confirming the filing of the case, said, “I have registered a case in Nairobi to seek justice in my husband’s murder case. We registered the case against the General Service Unit of Kenya because they committed the crime publicly and then admitted it was a matter of mistaken identity. But to me, it was a targeted murder. But the Kenyan government never apologized, and they never contacted us.”
The case was filed following reports that the five Kenyan police officers involved in the journalist’s murder had quietly returned to duty without facing any consequences. Nine months after the killing at a remote roadblock in East Africa, these officers are now back on full duty with their suspensions appearing to be a mere cover-up by Kenyan authorities.
A trusted security source revealed that the five cops involved in the fatal shootout are back to work, and two of them have been promoted to senior ranks.
Kenya’s Independent Policing and Oversight Authority (IPOA), the body tasked with investigating the conduct of police officers, despite promising to provide an update on Sharif’s murder within weeks, has not made its findings public in over nine months.
Sharif had arrived in the Kenyan capital on August 20 and died on October 23 the following year in a shootout in which his driver, Khurram Ahmad, miraculously survived.
The 49-year-old fled Pakistan in August to escape arrest on multiple charges, including sedition for an interview with Shahbaz Gill, an ex-aide to Imran Khan.
In Nairobi, he stayed at a penthouse owned by businessman Waqar Ahmad, who is also Khurram’s brother. The incident occurred as they were driving from Waqar’s Ammodump Kwenia training camp to Nairobi County, where Sharif was staying.
