Pakistan’s spy agencies are suspected of ties to reporter’s death

Cristiano Camera/The Associated Press, Courtesy of Adnkronos - Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, who investigated al-Qaeda's alleged infiltration of the navy and told a rights activist he'd been threatened by the country's intelligence agencies, was found dead Tuesday in Islamabad.

By Karin Brulliard
WashPost
Published: May 31 | Updated: Wednesday, June 1, 12:44 AM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Last week, a prominent Pakistani investigative reporter published an article alleging that al-Qaeda had infiltrated Pakistan’s navy and carried out the recent attack on a naval air base. On Tuesday, the journalist’s body — his face severely beaten — was found 100 miles from his home in this capital city, two days after he disappeared.

Syed Saleem Shahzad’s killing, other journalists and human rights activists said they suspected, was payback — not from militants, but from Pakistan’s fearsome spy agencies. Shahzad had written before about their dealings with Islamist insurgents, and he had said that intelligence officers had warned him.

“I am forwarding this email to you for your record only if in case something happens to me or my family in future,” Shahzad, 40, wrote in October to the Pakistan representative of Human Rights Watch, sharing details of a meeting he had just had with officers from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. Shahzad suggested that they had threatened him, an experience that Pakistani journalists, activists and politicians say is not uncommon.

But those threats rarely end in killing, and Shahzad’s death immediately sparked fresh criticism of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. The “agencies,” as they are known here, last month faced unusual public condemnation for their apparent failure to locate Osama bin Laden in a garrison city, as well as allegations that they had harbored him.

(More here.)