The Kenyan government has released an embargoed report stating that Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif was killed in a case of mistaken identity.
According to the report, Sharif was killed by four paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU) members in a random shootout because his driver, Khurram Ahmed, did not stop at the roadblock.
The report also rejects the original police version that shots were fired from inside Sharif’s Land Cruiser toward the police officers and that the police fired in retaliation. Instead, the report says that no shots were fired from inside the vehicle, and one of the four police officers was injured in hand but was hit by a bullet fired by a fellow police officer who was shooting in the direction of Sharif’s vehicle on the fateful night of October 23, 2022.
The official report recommends that two of the four GSU officers involved in using excessive force by opening fire recklessly should be prosecuted.
Kenya’s Penal Code stipulates that anyone involved in the excessive use of force could be sentenced to life. The official report also denies that Sharif was tortured before or after his murder.
The chairperson of Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) has said that a “full and thorough investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding the shooting” will be determined soon. Still, neither the Kenyan government nor the IPOA has released the results of their investigation in five months.
Pakistan’s government had previously claimed that Sharif was killed in a planned assassination plot in Kenya. However, the Kenyan government report agrees almost verbatim with the original police version, relying on the “mistaken identity” position from the start.
Arshad Sharif, who had fled Pakistan in August to avoid arrest in the wake of multiple cases, including sedition charges, was killed while in exile in Kenya. His family, friends, and colleagues said he was killed in a planned hit.
Islamabad police have charged Pakistani businessmen living in Kenya — Waqar and Khurram, who had hosted Sharif in the African country — with involvement in his killing. However, through their lawyer, Waqar Ahmed and Khurram Ahmed denied involvement in the murder, claiming that Sharif’s killing was a case of mistaken identity and no foul play was involved.
The case is now before Pakistan’s Supreme Court, represented by Justice (retired) Shaukat Siddiqui, the former Islamabad High Court judge.
