Pakistan PM, family mourn journalist Arshad Sharif shot dead in Kenya: ‘I lost a friend’

Exiled Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, who was charged with sedition earlier this year, was shot dead in Kenya, his wife said on Monday.

The 49-year-old former anchor with ARY TV and a critic of the country’s military had relocated to Kenya after he was charged with sedition by the incumbent government in August.

“I lost friend, husband and my favourite journalist Arshad Sharif today, as per police he was shot in Kenya,” his wife Javeria Siddique wrote on Twitter.

"Respect our privacy and in the name of breaking please don't share our family pics, personal details and his last pictures from hospital," she urged.

Sharif was shot dead when police hunting car thieves opened fire on the vehicle he was travelling in as it drove through their roadblock without stopping. The incident reportedly took place around 10pm local time on Sunday on the outskirts of the capital Nairobi.

According to the police report, a relative of Sharif was driving the car at the time of the shooting. It said police had formed the roadblock by placing small stones across the road, but the car drove through without stopping, even after officers opened fire.

Nine bullets hit the car, and one hit Sharif in the head, the report said.

The shooting was being treated as a case of mistaken identity, a senior police officer told the Kenyan daily The Star.

Kenya's Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA), a civilian watchdog, has started an investigation into Sharif's killing.

"There's an alleged police killing of a Pakistani national at Tinga market, Kajiado county, last evening. Our rapid response team has already been dispatched,” IPOA’s chairwoman Ann Makori told journalists.

Pakistan’s foreign office said its high commissioner in Kenya was in touch with the local police and awaiting a report. “Further procedures including police report are awaited,” the foreign office said in a statement, according to The Dawn.

The foreign office added that the high commission would facilitate the “early return” of Sharif’s body and his family has been assured of all possible assistance.

“I am deeply saddened by the shocking news of journalist Arshad Sharif’s tragic death,” said Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister.

“My deep condolences and prayers for the bereaved family.”

Former prime minister Imran Khan demanded a judicial investigation, saying Sharif “paid the ultimate price for speaking the truth”.

He wrote: “He had to leave the country & be in hiding abroad but he continued to speak the truth on social media, exposing the powerful. Today the entire nation mourns his death.”

“A proper judicial investigation must be instituted to examine his own statements plus evidence that other sources have.”

“A long, grim record of violent tactics to silence journalists explain why the reported murder of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya has sent shock waves through the journalist community,” wrote the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights watchdog.

“The government must pursue an immediate, transparent inquiry into the circumstances of his death.”