The United Nations (UN) should investigate the brutal murder of the senior journalist, Arshad Sharif, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said.
Renowned investigative journalist Arshad Sharif was ‘clearly targeted’ in Kenya, according to RSF, also known as Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based NGO devoted to press freedom.
RSF has called for a UN investigation into the incident in which well-known Pakistani TV news anchor Arshad Sharif was shot dead near Nairobi in a car. Due to the Kenyan police’s contradictory statements over the last two weeks and questions about the impartiality of Pakistani investigators, RSF has lambasted them.
In the wake of two wasted weeks due to contradictory Kenyan police statements and serious doubts about the impartiality of Pakistani investigators, RSF demands an independent investigation by the UN.
According to Sadibou Marong, Director RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau, the information emerging from Kenya is contradictory, and all independent attempts to find out more are met with a barrier of silence.
In order to discover more about this murder, the Kenyan authorities must ensure that the investigation is not clouded with vagueness, that it is independent and impartial, and that it is conducted in a diligent and impartial manner.
“The answers to why Arshad Sharif was in Kenya and why he had to escape his country are the questions behind his murder,” said RSF’s Asia-Pacific Head.
Due to the serious conflicts of interest on both the Kenyan and Pakistani sides, we are asking UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, to lead an independent international investigation and shine as much light on this atrocious incident as possible.
According to a Kenyan autopsy report published on November 4, one of the bullets penetrated his back, passed through his chest, and lodged in his head, while the other bullet penetrated his head.
The police have provided little information about how Arshad was killed. Those scant details have increased skepticism about the police account, the RSF said.
According to RSF, the police shot at Sharif’s vehicle because they believed it was a stolen vehicle that did not stop at a checkpoint. However, based on the pictures, it is improbable that the police could have been confused.
An account provided by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA)—which is responsible for policing the Kenyan police—asserted that police officers returned fire in response to shots fired by a person in the car and that the police shots hit Sharif by mistake.
However, this account is contradicted by the autopsy report, which demonstrates that Sharif was clearly targeted.
The JIT’s composition by Pakistan was criticized because it is led by representatives of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), both of which are government organizations.
The NGO said that the anchorperson was forced to leave his country because of cases such as ‘sedition,’ as well as death threats. In addition, he wrote a letter to the Supreme Court to express his concerns.
The UN should investigate the brutal killing of the senior journalist, the RSF statement concluded.
