02 June,2011 07:43 AM IST | | Agencies
Pakistan's intelligence services have been accused of involvement in the abduction and murder of a journalist investigating links between the country's military and al-Qaeda.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, whose tortured body was found on Tuesday in a canal, two days after he disappeared, had warned that the government's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency had threatened to silence him.
Shahzad was the bureau chief for Asia Times Online and correspondent for the Italian news service Adnkronos International.
Paying their last respects: Relatives and members of the media carry
the coffin of Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad at the airport in
Karachi yesterday. pic/afp
"This killing bears all the hallmarks of previous killings perpetrated by intelligence agencies," Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch said.
Regarded as being well-connected with the military and militant groups, Shahzad regularly embarrassed the Pakistani establishment with his investigations.
His final article alleged al-Qaeda had infiltrated the Pakistani Navy and carried out the attack last month on the country's largest naval air base in Karachi, killing 10 people and destroying two planes.
The story was to be the first in a two-part series, with Shahzad promising further stories on the terrorist network working inside Pakistan's powerful military.
Before he disappeared, Shahzad told Hasan, Pakistan representative for Human Rights Watch, that he was being threatened and followed by intelligence officers.
"He told me he is getting threatening telephone calls and that he is under intelligence surveillance," said Hasan.
"We can't say for sure who has killed Shahzad. But what we can say for sure is that Saleem Shahzad was under serious threat from the ISI and Human Rights Watch has every reason to believe that that threat was credible."
Shahzad's family have reportedly demanded a second autopsy be carried out.
President Asif Ali Zardari, expressed his "deep grief and sorrow" at Shahzad's death and ordered an inquiry into his kidnapping and murder.
The US government, whose relations with its ally in the war on terror are strained after the killing of Osama bin Laden, said his death was a further blow to free speech in Pakistan.
