Pakistani court halts proceedings in journalist murder case

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) – A Pakistani court has halted proceedings in the murder case of prominent local journalist Arshad Sharif due to the prosecution's "lack of interest," a court record and local media reported on Wednesday.

The Islamabad District and Sessions Court stopped the proceedings in the high-profile case after the prosecution's witnesses, including the slain journalist’s wife, failed to appear during the hearing despite "repeated "summons.

Sharif, a well-known TV host, was shot dead by police in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, in Oct. 2022.

He was shot in the head and killed by police after his driver allegedly violated a roadblock set up to check on motor vehicles on the route.

"Thereafter, repeated summons were issued to the prosecution witnesses but none of them appeared before the court for recording of evidence which shows (a) lack of interest of (the) prosecution in (the) recording of evidence in the instant case,” the court order said.

The prosecution was given more than 15 opportunities to present evidence, it added.

"In view of the above, (the) proceeding of the instant case file is hereby stopped. Complainant/prosecution at liberty to apply for fixation of date when the complainant/prosecution produce all the prosecution witnesses on any date,” the order said.

Javeria Siddique, one of Sharif's two widows, in a post on X, claimed that she neither knew about the court proceedings nor did she receive any summon.

"Our case is in the Supreme Court. We came to know about the case in the lower court through social media,” Siddique said.

She blamed law enforcement, claiming that the case, which the family wanted to file, was lodged by police for an obvious reason, which they realized in the form of closing it.

Sumiyya Arshad, Sharif's other widow, also told local media that she never received the court summons and learned about her warrants from media reports.