Pakistan Probe Fails to Find Culprits in Journalist’s Killing

Posted January 13th, 2012 at 8:45 am (UTC-5)
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A Pakistani commission investigating the murder of a journalist has not been able to find his murderers.

In a report released Friday, the government-appointed panel said it did not have enough evidence to name the perpetrators behind Saleem Shahzad's killing.

Shahzad, who worked for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online, disappeared from Pakistan's capital Islamabad last May. His body was found in a canal bearing signs of torture.

Before his death, Shahzad had been investigating alleged ties between Pakistan's military and Islamist groups. He reported that al-Qaida militants had attacked a Pakistani naval base after talks failed to secure the release of two naval officials arrested on suspicion of links to the global terror network.

A Human Rights Watch researcher said the journalist told him that he feared Pakistani intelligence agents were after him.

Pakistan's main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, has dismissed allegations of involvement in Shahzad's death as “baseless.”

Although the commission did not name any suspects in its report, it did recommend that the intelligence agency be more “law-abiding.”

Reporters Without Borders named Pakistan as the deadliest country for journalists for two years in a row, with 10 killed in the country in 2011.