Pakistan says military-critic scribe killed in ‘targeted attack’ in Kenya

Islamabad, Nov 8 (EFE).- The government Tuesday said a prominent Pakistani journalist who had fled the country was killed in a “targeted attack” in Kenya.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah debunked the Kenyan police’s claim that the military-critic TV presenter facing sedition charges in Pakistan was shot dead in a mistaken identity.

Sanaullah told reporters that no evidence supported the “mistaken identity” narrative.

The minister said Pakistan had sent a two-member probe team to Kenya.

“Prima facie, it is a targeted murder as the narrative of ‘mistaken identity’ has not been proven […] and there are many doubts,” said the minister.

He said more information would only emerge after a detailed investigation.

Sanaullah said the government had decided to request the foreign ministry and the high commissioner of Kenya in Islamabad to provide the data collected by Kenyan officials.

The journalist fled Pakistan in August due to sedition charges for allegedly criticizing the military.

Javeria Siddiqui, Sharif’s wife, told EFE that her husband left Pakistan for Dubai, where the authorities asked him to leave, despite a valid visa.

She said he had no visa for any other country on his passport and landed in Kenya as it offers a visa on arrival for Pakistanis.

Siddiqui has demanded a probe by the United Nations into the “targeted killing” of her husband, rejecting the locally formed investigative commission.

In her first interview with any media after the killing, Siddiqui said she and her family did not trust the government’s investigation into the killing.

“We reject this commission and demand the UN form a commission to investigate the killing,” Siddique told EFE last week.

Sharif, critical of Pakistan’s all-powerful military, was killed on the night of Oct.23 near Nairobi in Kenya.

The Kenyan police have changed their statements at least two times about what happened that day. EFE

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