• Javeria Siddique filed lawsuit to “get justice for her husband”.
• Lawsuit also seeks “public apology” from Kenyan attorney general.
• Journalist was shot dead in October 2022 by Kenyan police officers.

NAIROBI: Slain journalist Arshad Sharif’s wife has registered a case against the Kenyan Elite police unit for her husband’s murder in Kenya, reported The News.

Javeria Siddique in her petition has made the attorney general of Kenya, national police service of the country and the director public prosecution respondents. 

She has urged that the officers involved in Sharif’s murder be put on trial and be punished for their crime.

She urged the court to issue directives to the Kenyan attorney general (AG) to apologise to Sharif’s family within seven days of court’s orders, admit facts, accept responsibility and issue a written apology at public level.

Sharif’s widow, while confirming the filing of the case, said: “I have got a case registered in Nairobi for seeking justice in murder case of my husband. We got the case registered against general service unit of Kenya because they committed crime publicly and then admitted it was matter of mistaken identity. But to me it was targeted murder. But Kenyan government never apologised. They never contacted us.”

The registration of the case comes after it was reported the five Kenyan police officers who were involved in the killing quietly resumed their duties without any action taken against them.

Nine months after the killing of the journalist at a roadblock in a remote part of the East African country, the five police officers involved in the brutal killing are enjoying full police perks and their suspensions have turned out to be only a whitewash by the Kenyan authorities.

A trusted security source revealed that the five cops involved in the fatal shootout are back to work and two of them have been promoted to senior ranks.

Kenya’s Independent Policing and Oversight Authority (IPOA), the body that is tasked with investigating the conduct of police officers, despite making a promise to give an update on Sharif’s murder within weeks has not made its findings public in over nine months.

Sharif had arrived in the Kenyan capital on August 20 and died on October 23 last year in a shootout in which his driver Khurram Ahmad survived miraculously.

The 49-year-old had fled Pakistan in August to avoid arrest after he was slapped with several cases including sedition charges over an interview with Shahbaz Gill, a former aide of Imran Khan. 

After reaching Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Sharif stayed at the Riverside penthouse of businessman Waqar Ahmad who is also Khurram’s brother who was driving him when he was killed.

The journalist was being driven from Ammodump Kwenia training camp, a joint which is owned by Waqar and they were heading to Nairobi County where he was staying.