Arshad Sharif’s murder was “targeted,” says fact-finding team

ISLAMABAD:

Senior journalist Arshad Sharif was reportedly assassinated in a “planned targeted assassination” involving “transnational individuals,” according to the conclusions of a two-person fact-finding team made up of Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) employees.

The five-member Supreme Court panel, presided by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, received the 592-page report from the investigators that rejected the Kenyan police’s narrative of Mr. Sharif’s murder, which they referred to as “a case of mistaken identity.”

According to the investigation, it cannot be excluded that “transnational roles of characters in Kenya, Dubai, and Pakistan” were involved in the assassination.

The study identified several inconsistencies in the sequence of events leading up to Mr. Sharif’s death and also drew attention to inconsistencies in Salman Iqbal, who made comments in connection with the case.

The report claims that members of the Kenyan General Services Unit (GSU) used an AK-47 and a Gilboa weapon to fire nine shots at Mr. Sharif’s car. The statement said, “Only one fire (sic) whose trajectory doesn’t correspond with the firing pattern,” though.

It was revealed that “Arshad Sharif was wounded from the rear and the bullet departed from the right side of the chest, however, there is no penetration mark of a bullet on the seat of Arshad Sharif.” It was said and referred to as a “closed range firing” because it does not match his seating position, the location of the gunners, as well as the line of fire.
The fact that the “driver’s side door and window are undamaged, and the driver’s seat does not even have any splatters of blood, which is curious given that one of Mr. Sharif’s injuries was a head wound that caused his skull to shatter and scatter hair, blood, and bone particles over the passenger seat, the passenger side roof of the car, and even on the rear passenger seat.”

It also identified the factors, such as the filing of nearly a dozen FIRs, that compelled Arshad Sharif to flee Pakistan. It implied that there was a chance the journalist could have to leave Dubai.