Pak spy agencies' hand suspected in investigative reporter's death after torture

Islamabad, June 1(ANI): The death of Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, who had investigated al-Qaida's alleged infiltration of the navy and told a rights activist that he had been threatened by the country's spy agencies, has immediately sparked fresh criticism of Pakistan's intelligence apparatus.

Last week, the prominent Pakistani investigative reporter had published an article alleging that al-Qaeda had infiltrated the Pakistan Navy and carried out the recent attack on a naval air base.

On Tuesday, Shahzad's body- with his face severely beaten- was found 100 miles from his home in Islamabad, two days after he disappeared.

Other journalists and human rights activists said they believed that Shahzad's killing was payback not from militants, but from Pakistan's fearsome spy agencies, The Washington Post reports.

Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan representative for Human Rights Watch, said it would have been difficult for anyone unaffiliated with the security agencies to abduct a man and his car from Islamabad, a city riddled with police checkpoints.

More important, he and journalists said, Shahzad's disappearance and treatment bore the hallmarks of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

Shahzad had written before about their dealings with Islamist insurgents and intelligence officers had warned him, the report said.

"I am forwarding this email to you for your record only if in case something happens to me or my family in future," Shahzad had written last October to HRW's Pakistan representative, sharing details of a meeting he had just had with officers from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Shahzad suggested that the ISI officials had threatened him- an experience that Pakistani journalists, activists and politicians say is not uncommon, the report said.

But those threats rarely end in killing, and Shahzad's death immediately sparked fresh criticism of Pakistan's intelligence apparatus, which faced unusual public condemnation last month for their apparent failure to locate Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad, as well as allegations that they had harboured him, the report said.

On Tuesday, the focus was on activities Pakistan's spies are better known for domestically: punishing those who cross the powerful military, the main locus of power in a nation with a weak civilian government, it added.

An ISI official denied that the agency was involved in Shahzad's death, saying: "Show us the proof. Otherwise, it's totally absurd."

Shahzad's killing has also renewed attention on the alleged crossover between militants and Pakistan's security forces, some of which he outlined in his recent article for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online, for which he was the Pakistan bureau chief, the report said.

According to Shahzad's reporting, last week's attack on a Karachi naval base was a response to the Pakistani Navy's detection of al-Qaeda cells within its ranks, and it followed failed discussions between the navy and al-Qaeda about the release of naval officers arrested on suspicions of links to the terrorist group. (ANI)