PAKISTAN PROBE DRAWS A BLANK ON JOURNALIST KILLING
ISLAMABAD, Jan.13:(AFP|RSS-Nepal) - An investigation into the killing of a Pakistani journalist who reported that Islamist militants had infiltrated the military has not been able to find his murderers, state media said Friday.
The journalist, who worked for an Italian news agency and a Hong Kong-registered news site, told Human Rights Watch he had been threatened by intelligence agents. The Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan's main spy agency, has denied as "baseless" allegations that it was involved in his murder.
The findings of a government commission set up to investigate the claims have not been able to trace Shahzad's killers, Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told state media. "Killers of the slain journalist could not be traced so far," she said, according to the state news agency, adding that the full report would be uploaded to a government website later in the day.
The minister told reporters that police and other investigators would continue to look into the journalist's death, while Shahzad's family would be given generous compensation.
His relatives had demanded a full investigation but have not apportioned blame for his killing, which came five years after he was briefly kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan and accused of being a spy.
Shahzad's widow would be given three million Rupees ($33,000), a government teaching job near her home and his children would be given free education, she said.
According to press watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Pakistan was the deadliest country for the media in 2011 with at least eight journalists killed in connection with their work. Shahzad's body was found south of the capital, bearing marks of torture. Two days earlier he had written an investigative report in Asia Times Online saying Al-Qaeda carried out a recent attack on a naval air base to avenge the arrest of naval officials held on suspicion of Al-Qaeda links.
The US military's then top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said Pakistan authorities may have sanctioned Shahzad's killing.
The accusation was a major setback for relations between the United States and Pakistan, coming shortly after US troops killed Osama bin Laden in a covert raid in the garrison city of Abbottabad.RSS