Court upholds non-bailable arrest warrants for Arshad Sharif’s wife

The court on Saturday, during a hearing pertaining to the Arshad Sharif murder case, upheld the non-bailable warrants against the slain journalist’s wife and his producer Ali Usman.

Judicial Magistrate Abbas Shah upheld the non-bailable arrest warrants against Arshad Sharif’s wife and the slain journalist’s producer Ali Usman after the duo failed to appear before the court to record their statements.

The development comes as the court on various hearings had directed Sharif’s wife and producer multiple times to record their statement in the case.

On June 19, owing to the persistent failure to comply with the court’s instructions, the court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants of the two.

Arshad Sharif murder case

Pakistani journalist and anchorperson Arshad Sharif was shot dead in Kenya by the Kenyan police on October 23 last year.

At the time the Kenyan authorities termed the killing as a “mistaken identity” case.

The statement issued by the Kenyan police read: “Arshad Muhammad Sharif, aged 50, was fatally wounded by a police officer while a passenger in a motor vehicle KDG 200M.”

“Incident follows a circulation from Pangani Police of a stolen motor vehicle. The officers trailing the motor vehicle towards Magadi alerted police in Magadi who erected a road barrier,” the statement added.

This was further echoed by the Kenyan government’s investigation report.

According to a trusted Kenyan government source who has read the report in full and shared its contents with Geo News cited the report that read: “Arshad Sharif was killed by four members of the para-military General Service Unit (GSU) in a random shootout because his driver Khurram Ahmed didn’t stop at the roadblock.”

However, Sharif’s post-mortem report prepared by the Pakistan Institute Of Medical Sciences (PIMS) mentioned “torture signs” on the deceased’s body, Geo News reported on November 22 2022.

Meanwhile, in response to Pakistani authorities’ request to the Kenyan Foreign Office for permission to open a new investigation, the Kenyan authorities categorically rejected Islamabad’s request for assistance in the investigation, Geo News reported in April earlier this year.

Furthermore, last month Geo News investigation revealed that the Kenyan police officers involved in the killing of Arshad Sharif resumed their duties without any action taken against them.