Omar Shahid Hamid removed from key IB post

KARACHI: Joint Director Intelligence Bureau, Omar Shahid Hamid, a key member of the fact-finding team that probed the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif has been removed from the post. He has been asked to report to the Establishment Division.

Arshad Waheed, an officer of Federal Investigation Agency, and Omar had gone to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, to investigate the murder case of Arshad Sharif and later they submitted a 592-page report to the Ministry of Interior.

The fact-finding report had concluded that the murder of Arshad Sharif was a planned and targeted assassination, which purportedly involved transnational characters. In a 592-page report submitted by the Ministry of Interior to the five-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, the investigators also contested the version of the Kenyan police, who termed Sharif’s killing a case of mistaken identity.

The report observed that the transnational roles of characters in Kenya, Dubai and Pakistan in the assassination of the journalist cannot be ruled out. The report also highlighted a number of discrepancies in the events leading to the death of Arshad Sharif as well as contradictions in the statements of the owner of a private TV channel.