Javeria Siddique, the widow to slain journalist Arshad Sharif has filed a lawsuit against the Kenyan Police after her husband, a prominent investigative journalist, was murdered by Kenyan police in October 2022.
Siddique has filed the lawsuit at a Nairobi Court suing the General Service Unit (GSU) which she blames for the wrongful death of her husband.
In her lawsuit, Siddique wants the court to 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 murder.
Siddique also wants the court to direct the Attorney General to issue a public apology and take responsibility for her husband's murder within 7 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 stated that the Kenyan government never issued an apology nor tried to reach out to the family in any way.
“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, known to be very critical of the Pakistani military, was killed in Kajiado at a roadblock along the Nairobi- Magadi Highway on October 23, 2022, nearly two months after he left Pakistan to seek refuge in Kenya.
His murder quickly hit national headlines in Pakistan which prompted the Kenyan Police to issue a statement. At the time, the National Police Service claimed that the journalist's killing was a case of mistaken identity.
According to NPS's account which has since been dismissed as misleading by the independent Pakistani investigators, the journalist was shot in the head by General Service Unit (GSU) officers after allegedly 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 reached out to President William Ruto in a bid to unravel the mystery behind the murder of the prominent journalist.
According to Pakistani media outlets, the Prime Minister urged Ruto to fast track investigations into the murder of the popular journalist when the two met on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation being held in Beijing, China.
