On October 23, 2022, a prominent Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif was shot and killed allegedly by law enforcement in Kenya. Sharif, a former anchor with Pakistan’s ARY TV, was a passenger in a car that was travelling to Nairobi. Initially, Kenyan authorities said that a police officer mistakenly shot dead the journalist while on the hunt for criminals on the outskirts of the capital.
Sharif was also known for his criticism of the government of Pakistan. According to reports, he fled his country due to threats to his life.
After the killing, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced an investigation and promised the government’s findings would be shared with the public. The military and Pakistani journalists also demanded a probe, as did Sharif’s widow, Javeria Siddique, and other family members.
In early December, a team of Pakistani investigators released a report saying that the killing was a “planned assassination”, allegedly involving ‘transnational characters’. The team’s findings came days after the apprehension of three suspects by Pakistani authorities. The trio had hosted Sharif in Kenya and at least one of them reportedly had connections to Kenya’s National Intelligence Service and international law enforcement agencies, according to the Pakistani team’s report.