Arshad Sharif assassination: FIA-IB team leaves for Dubai

ISLAMABAD: The two-member Joint Investigation Team comprising senior officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), engaged to probe the assassination of journalist Arshad Sharif, returned from Keyna last night. It left for Dubai on Tuesday.

The members of the JIT include Omar Shahid Hamid, the Deputy Director-General, Intelligence Bureau, and Athar Waheed, Director FIA. The team stayed in Kenya for 10 days. The team briefed the Director-General FIA, Mohsin Hassan Butt, Tuesday morning about the course of investigations while in Kenya and then left for Dubai to expand the scope of investigations.

The team is expected to probe the events and incidents that happened while Arshad Sharif was in Dubai and the causes as to what compelled the journalist to leave Dubai and go to Kenya.

The two-member JIT, while briefing the DG FIA about the visit to Kenya, said that they held detailed meetings with senior officials of Kenyan police department as well as had interviews with officials involved in firing on the vehicle in which Arshad Sharif was riding.

“Both the team members had thorough interviews with the Kenyan police officials, who opened fire on the vehicle and tried to ascertain the reasons behind the incident,” the DG FIA said while talking to The News.

“The team members have informed me that the Kenyan police officials, involved in the firing incident on the vehicle, are still standing by what they had said in their earlier report and presented various evidences to back their action,” the DG FIA said.

To a question, the DG FIA said that separate investigations are continuing side by side to probe the possibility of involvement of two individuals, Waqar and Khurram, in the assassination of Arshad Sharif.

However, he added, the Kenyan police does not believe in involvement of both Waqar and Khurram in the assassination of Arshad Sharif. Yet, some sources in Kenya say that the Kenyan authorities have not completely absolved the two and a probe is still continuing from various angles. It is expected that on return from Dubai, the IB-FIA JIT will formally submit its fact-finding report to the DG FIA. It was not explained as to how long this team will stay in Dubai.