Kenyan Court Rules Shooting Death of Pakistani Journalist Unlawful

Kenyan Court Rules Shooting Death of Pakistani Journalist Unlawful

A Kenyan court has ruled that the 2022 shooting death of Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif by police in Nairobi was unlawful and unconstitutional. The decision, announced on Monday, was welcomed by Sharif’s family and their lawyer.

Judge Stella Mutuku criticized Kenya’s attorney general and director of public prosecutions for their lack of diligence in investigating Sharif’s death, which occurred when police opened fire on his car at a traffic checkpoint.

Sharif’s family has accused an elite unit of the Kenyan police of deliberately killing the 50-year-old journalist, who had fled Pakistan earlier in the year to avoid arrest on charges of denigrating national institutions. In December 2022, a group of Pakistani investigators concluded that Sharif’s murder was a “planned assassination,” suggesting that the fatal bullet was fired from inside the car or at close range.

Despite ongoing investigations, none of the police officers involved in the shooting have been arrested or charged. The court has ordered Kenyan authorities to conclude their investigation into the officers and to compensate Sharif’s family with 10 million Kenyan shillings ($78,000).

Dudley Ochiel, the lawyer representing Sharif’s widow, Javeria Siddique, hailed the ruling as a “huge victory for the family and friends of this man in Kenya, Pakistan, and around the world.” Ochiel expects the attorney general to bring charges against the two officers suspected of killing Sharif at the roadblock.

The incident shocked Pakistan, where thousands attended Sharif’s funeral. While Pakistan has maintained that no state institution was involved in his death, Ms. Siddique, who filed the complaint against the Kenyan police alongside Kenyan journalists’ unions, stated that, although her husband will not return, “at least now everyone knows he was killed intentionally.”

Initially, police had attributed the shooting to “mistaken identity” while searching for a similar car involved in a child abduction case.