A Kenyan journalist has challenged the claims that Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif was ‘tortured’ before being murdered in Kenya last month. Brian Obuya says the claims about the “duration of torture” undermine the information being put out in Pakistan.

Obuya, who has been following the murder since October 24, said in a series of tweets that there was a renewed “disinformation and sensation” over the murder. According to him, such an approach was threatening the credibility of the investigation.

Obuya has, however, made questionable assertations himself by saying that Arshad Sharif’s nails were removed for DNA testing.

His reaction came after Dunya News anchor Kamran Shahid claimed on his show on Wednesday that Sharif was brutally tortured for two to three hours before being killed. He showed photos of limbs, purportedly of the slain journalist’s body, as evidence to back his claim, prompting a sharp reaction from the journalist’s widow Javeria Siddique over the leak of the autopsy report from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

Kamran Shahid claimed that Sharif’s nails were removed when he was subjected to torture and there were marks on his wrist.

Sharif was shot dead on the night of October 23 by the police in what they said was a case of mistaken identity.

Kenya’s police have said that police officers manning a roadblock shot Sharif dead when the vehicle he was traveling in failed to stop.

But, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah rebuffed such claims on Wednesday and explicitly said that it was a targeted attack. “Sections of media are reporting that the journalist was tortured for three hours; that finding is not scientific,” he said.

“Reports allege that Arshad Sharif was tortured for three hours. While an autopsy can reveal torture, it cannot tell ‘duration of the torture,’ such an attempt makes it unbelievable. Part of Sharif’s fingernails were retained during the first autopsy for DNA,” he said while sharing a picture of the post-mortem report done in Kenya.

Obuya, who does special projects for NTV Kenya, also joined the ARY News show Sawal Yeh Hai on Friday night via telephone to speak on the case. “Well, the Kenyan report does not talk about the torture, but the report talked about a fingernail… one or two… that was actually removed for DNA testing,” he said.

“The fingernail one or two which was actually removed for DNA testing, you know this is basically about fingernails are medically known or scientifically to basically craft a lot of material here and there as they are most of the times used to get DNA of where people attacked or what they got in contact with so during the post mortem in Kenya a part of the body was removed for toxicology. Part of the blood sample was taken. We also see from that report a fingernail or two have been removed to understand the aspect of DNA if the disease got in contact with anyone.”

To a query on claims that Arshad’s ribs and fingers were broken, he said that the Kenyan report does not talk about that. “I wanted us to go slow on part of these unless the doctors who are conducting post-mortem report come out and declare that that is their finding because it was not even the physical findings of the doctors who are back here in Kenya,” he said.

“It will be important we stick to facts and facts alone,” the Kenyan journalist said. “It is not scientific for a doctor or anyone to actually say how long someone was tortured.”

‘Marks on Sharif’s body show he was tortured’

Sanaullah has claimed that marks on Sharif’s body alleged that he was tortured, however, he refused from speaking about the details of it.

“This narrative is wrong that Sharif was killed because of a case of mistaken identity,” he said while appearing on Geo News show Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Key Sath on Friday. “The investigation team in Kenya has not found such things.”

The investigative team noticed that the place where the murder took place in Kenya was a deserted road, where investigators had seen only three vehicles pass by during the day. There was not any checkpoint.

Sanaullah was of the view that Waqar and Khurram, who refuse to give their phone data, have an important role in the murder. “Sharif was tortured first and then the police were involved in making it a pretense of firing. The police [in Kenya] have such a reputation that they do such things.”

PIMS director confirms post mortem pictures were leaked from hospital

The pictures of post mortem of Arshad Sharif are correct and they were leaked from the hospital, the PIMS director, Dr Khalid Masood, said.

He added that an investigation was under way.

Dr Masood told Geo News that the leader of the team, carrying out post mortem on Arshad Sharif’s body, identified 12 marks of torture.

“According to the initial report, marks of torture were found on Sharif’s right wrist, four fingernails of his right hand were missing, and a mark of injury was also found on the finger of his left hand, thus there were marks of injury in 12 different places. Forensics is being conducted in this regard. The report will come out, then it will be known how much violence took place, did it take place or did not take place.”

He added that the hospital did not get the report of the autopsy conducted in Kenya. “We do not know which part of the body they used for the autopsy, when we saw there were no nails, maybe nails are removed during an autopsy in Kenya.”

The PIMS director said that as per the law the initial report has been given to the police, none of his family has given a “written request”. But, if any request comes, the hospital would give a report.

‘Arshad Sharif was not tortured’

The Kenyan newspaper, Nation, while citing a pathologist reported that there was no evidence of torture while explaining the details of the reports of autopsies done in Kenya and Pakistan.

Dr Ahmed Kalebi, who is an independent consultant pathologist based in Nairobi, had analysed the two post-mortem examination reports to explain the cause of death.

“The report has not documented any evidence of other injuries that would be consistent with torture, nor does it indicate that the deceased was tortured before death,” he said.