SC to hear Arshad Sharif murder case on January 05
The Supreme Court has fixed suo motu case of seniour journalist Arshad Sharif’s assassination for hearing on Thursday (January 05).
A five-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial will hear the case at 1pm on January 05.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan, Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar, Justice Jamal Khan Mandukhel and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazahar are also part of the bench.
Last month, the CJP had taken suo motu notice to conduct an independent and transparent investigation into the journalist’s murder. He hoped that progress would be made in different areas of the probe.
The bench observed that in case the JIT faced any administrative difficulty, it might approach the office of the CJP for its resolution.
Following the last hearing of the case on December 7, the federal government informed the Supreme Court that a joint investigation team (JIT) had been formed to probe into the murder of the journalist in Kenya.
The special 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).
It may be recalled that the Interior Ministry constituted the JIT to ensure effective foreign liaison and collection of evidence in national and international jurisdictions.
Sharif was killed on the night of October 23 in Kenya by the Kenyan GSU officers in mysterious circumstances as he was being driven to Nairobi.
The Kenyan police contradicted its statement by first saying that Sharif was killed in a case of mistaken identity, but later it alleged that shots were fired at the police from inside Sharif’s car and he was killed when the response unit fired back.
