SC Registrar’s Office rejects JIT report on Arshad Sharif

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court’s Registrar Office has returned the joint investigation team’s (JIT) report on journalist Arshad Sharif murder case raising objections.

According to sources, the apex court's Registrar’s Office refused to take the report from the investigation team, observing that some pages in it were not readable.

It noted that the report of the postmortem conducted on the slain journalist could not be read clearly, especially the one carried out in Kenya.

The team submitted an affidavit to the court that read: “[The] Joint Investigation Committee is going to Kenya on January 15, 2023, therefore, [a] Legible Copy of [the] Postmortem report will be brought from there, till then [the] available copy of [the]  Postmortem Report may kindly be entertained with [the] Interim Report.”

The apex court will conduct a hearing on Thursday (today) on its suo motu notice of the journalist’s murder in Kenya.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Umar Ata Bandial and comprising Justice Ijazul Hassan, Justice Mazahir Naqvi, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar will hear the case.

The Islamabad police have submitted the progress report of the JIT to the court, as well as to the judges’ chamber.

The affidavits of deputy superintendent and deputy inspector general of the Islamabad police have also been submitted to them along with the report.

The JIT is led by Islamabad Police DIG Headquarters Awais Ahmed and has four other members — namely Muhammad Aslam from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Murtaza Afzal from the Military Intelligence (MI), Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Waqaruddin Syed, and Sajid Kayani of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

Arshad, a strong supporter of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, was shot dead in Kenya’s Nairobi city on October 23 last year.

The death of the journalist sent shock waves across rights organisations, the media fraternity and civil society and prompted calls for thorough investigation and disclosure of facts.

During an earlier hearing, the CJP had appreciated the report of the fact-finding committee, comprising two senior officers of the FIA and IB, for unearthing important facts about the case.

Their report read that the murder of Arshad was a “planned and targeted assassination” by transnational characters and not a case of mistaken identity, as claimed by the police in Kenya.

It added that the “transnational roles” of individuals from Kenya, Dubai, and Pakistan could not be ruled out in the case.

“The four GSU [General Service Unit] police officials and OC GSU Training camp had been used as instruments in this case under influence, either financial or some other compulsion,” it added.

The report stated that the person, Waqar, who sponsored and hosted the journalist, was connected to Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) and other international agencies and law-enforcement.

“His linkage with national and international agencies provides a scope of possibilities of transnational characters in this case,” the report stated.

Also, according to their report, the narrative of another person, Khurram, who drove the vehicle prior to Arshad's murder, on the sequence of events and the crime scene, were contrary to logic and facts, and that there were no penetration marks of a bullet on journalist's car seat.

Rather, the journalist was hit from the back and the bullet exited from the right side of his cchest

The report maintained that Khurram’s narrative did not match “his [Arshad's] sitting position, the position of the gunners as well as the line of fire”.