ISLAMABAD (AP) A Kenyan court on Monday ruled that the 2022 Pakistani journalist shot dead Lawyers and family members said the action by Nairobi police was illegal and unconstitutional.
Judge Stella Mutuku, in a ruling in Nairobi, criticised Kenya’s attorney general and director of public prosecutions for failing to investigate the shooting death of Arshad Sharif after police opened fire on his car at a checkpoint.
Sharif’s family has accused Kenya’s elite police unit of deliberately killing him. The 50-year-old journalist had fled Pakistan earlier that year to avoid arrest in the country on charges of defaming Pakistani state institutions.
A Pakistani investigation committee concluded in December 2022 that Sharif’s killing was a “premeditated assassination,” and the report suggested the bullet that fatally wounded Sharif was fired from inside a car or at close range.
Kenyan authorities are still investigating the murder and no officers involved in the shooting have been arrested or charged.
In its ruling on Monday, the court called on Kenyan authorities to end their investigation into the officers and also ordered the government to pay 10 million Kenyan shillings ($78,000) in compensation to Sharif’s family.
Dudley Okier, lawyer for Sharif’s widow, Javeria Siddiq, said the verdict was “a major victory for Mr Sharif’s family and friends in Kenya, Pakistan and around the world.”
Okiel said he expected prosecutors to bring charges against the two police officers suspected of shooting and killing Sharif at the checkpoint.
of The killings have shocked Pakistan. And a few days later, thousands of people Sharif’s funeral.
Pakistan has denied any state agents were involved in his death.
Siddiq, who filed a complaint with Kenyan police with the Kenyan Journalists Union, said she knew her husband would not come back but “at least now everyone knows he was killed deliberately.”
Police initially said the shooting was the result of a “misidentification” during a search for a similar vehicle involved in a child abduction case.
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Musambi reported from Nairobi, Kenya.
