SC schedules hearing in Arshad Sharif's murder case

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has scheduled the hearing of the suo-motu notice in the case pertaining to the murder of senior journalist and former ARY News anchor Arshad Sharif, ARY News reported.

According to reports, Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan has constituted a seven-member constitutional bench for the hearing of the suo-motu notice.

The constitutional bench of the Supreme Court will hear the Arshad Sharif suo-motu case on December 9.

The bench includes Justices Jamal Mandokhel, Mohammad Ali Mazhar, Hassan Rizvi, Musarat Hilali, Naeem Afghan, and Shahid Bilal.

In August 2024, the Supreme Court’s Practice and Procedure Committee, led by then-Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, decided with a 2-1 majority vote to form a five-member larger bench, instead of a three-member bench, to hear the suo-motu case regarding Arshad Sharif’s murder.

The sources privy to the development said that CJP Qazi Faez Isa suggested keeping the 3-member bench intact, but Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Munib Akhtar, the other two members of the committee, voted in favour of forming a larger bench.

This development followed a July 2024 ruling by the Kenyan High Court, which awarded 10 million Kenyan shillings to the family of slain Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, who was ‘mistakenly’ shot and killed by Kenyan police officers in October 2022.

Arshad Sharif, a senior journalist, was shot dead in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on October 23, 2022, where he was living in self-exile.

The official police statement later expressed “regrets on the unfortunate incident.”

Arshad Sharif’s wife Javeria Siddique through her lawyer, Advocate Dudley Ochiel, requested the court to order the Attorney General, Director of Public Prosecutions, Inspector General of Police, Independent Policing Oversight Authority, and the National Police Service Commission (the respondents) to provide her with copies of all documents, evidence, films, photographs, and video recordings in their possession related to Sharif’s shooting.

“By shooting the deceased in the circumstances described in this case and which shooting has been admitted save for allegation that it was mistaken identity, the respondents violated the rights of the deceased,” the judge said in an order.