Widow of Slain Journalist Arshad Sharif Files Landmark Lawsuit Against Kenyan Police
Javeria Siddique, the widow of murdered journalist Arshad Sharif, has filed a lawsuit against the Kenyan Police for the October 2022 assassination of her husband, a prominent investigative journalist.
Javeria has filed a lawsuit in a Nairobi court against the General Service Unit (GSU), which she holds responsible for her husband’s unlawful death.
Siddique requests in her lawsuit that the court compel Attorney General Justin Muturi, the National Police Service, and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Renson Ingonga to punish and prosecute the police officers involved in the homicide.
Siddique also requests that the court order the Attorney General to apologize and accept responsibility for her husband’s assassination within seven days of the court’s order.
“I am suing the GSU because they committed the crime openly, then admitted that it was a case of mistaken identity. But for me it was a targeted assassination because he was living in hiding in Kenya after receiving threats in Pakistan,” Siddique told AP.
The widow claimed that the Kenyan government never apologized or attempted to reach out to the family.
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“They never contacted us, they never showed any kind of kindness toward us. It is really cruel for a government to be so insensitive,” Siddique added.
Sharif, an investigative journalist who was notoriously critical of the Pakistani military, was murdered in Kajiado on the Nairobi-Magadi Highway on October 23, 2022, nearly two months after he fled Pakistan for Kenya.
His homicide made headlines in Pakistan almost immediately, prompting the Kenyan Police to issue a statement. The National Police Service stated at the time that the journalist’s murder was a case of mistaken identity.
According to the NPS’s account, which independent Pakistani investigators have since dismissed as misleading, the journalist was shot in the head by General Service Unit (GSU) officers after purportedly breaching a roadblock set up to inspect motor vehicles along the route.
This comes one day after Caretaker Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar contacted President William Ruto to solve the homicide of the prominent journalist.
During their meeting on Tuesday in Beijing, China, on the sidelines of the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Pakistan’s Prime Minister reportedly urged Kenya’s President Ruto to expedite the investigation into the assassination of the prominent journalist.
Widow of Slain Journalist Arshad Sharif Files Landmark Lawsuit Against Kenyan Police
