Reporters Without Borders requests UN investigation into Kenyan murder of a Pakistani journalist

The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has urged a UN investigation into Sharif’s death, expressing concerns about the objectivity of the Pakistani investigators and contrasting testimonies from the Kenyan police.

“The information currently emerging from the Kenyan wing of the investigation is contradictory, and all independent attempts to get information are met with a wall of silence,” said Sadibou Marong, the director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau. “If the Kenyan authorities want to shed light on this murder, they must ensure that the investigation is not cloaked in imprecision, and that it is independent and impartial.” “Why was Arshad Sharif in Kenya and, above all, why did he have to flee his country? These are the questions behind his murder,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.
“The potential conflicts of interest are such on both the Kenyan and Pakistani sides that we are calling on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, to launch an investigation with an independent international team to shed all possible light on this shocking case.”

Shariff was killed in two rounds fired at close range. This is one of the few unambiguous details that have come to light in the two weeks after his slaying on the evening of October 23 in a Nairobi neighborhood. The details come from an autopsy report from Kenya that was released on November 4.

According to the report, one of the bullets went through his back and out through his chest, and the other one hit him in the head.

Eric Oduor, president of the Kenya Union of Journalists, told RSF that journalists everywhere demanded an open probe.

“But the government has not reported any progress in the investigations into the killing of Arshad Sharif. And we keep on demanding that the investigations are fast-tracked to bring the killers to book.”

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which the government commissioned on October 25 to look into the murder, has come under scrutiny for the way Pakistan has handled the matter in the interim.

According to the French media watchdog, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the feared military intelligence organisation infamous for carrying out extrajudicial operations all throughout the world, was originally meant to send one of the investigators.

Due to public criticism, the ISI representative was removed from the JIT; nevertheless, the JIT’s leadership is made up of individuals from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), both of which are direct extensions of the government.

A new judicial committee established by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to look into the assassination hit immediate difficulty on November 6 when Abdul Shakoor Paracha, a retired judge named to lead it, withdrew to accept the position, citing concerns Sharif’s mother had expressed about the commission.

Sharif’s mother criticised the commission for not including a journalist and for including someone who had already travelled to Nairobi in connection with the investigation.