NEW DELHI — The deadliest country to be a journalist in just got deadlier.
Pakistan is reeling after news late Tuesday that journalist Saleem Shahzad’s body was discovered near his abandoned car in Islamabad.
Shahzad went missing Sunday night, his family said, after he left his home heading for a local TV station.
Almost immediately after his disappearance, Human Rights Watch issued a release saying it had reason to believe Shahzad had been arrested by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI. His body was found with signs that he had been tortured, according to local news reports.
When Shahzad went missing, many locals in Pakistan feared the worst.
Operating as an objective, honest journalist in Pakistan is like navigating a minefield.
Reporters Without Borders has noted news media freedom in Pakistan has plunged in recent years and it is now among the world’s most dangerous places to report from. Last year, 11 journalists were killed in Pakistan, the organization said.
Shahzad was certainly known to Pakistan’s ISI.
He vanished two days after he wrote a story for the Asia Times that said Al Qaeda attacked a naval base in Karachi on May 22 because its negotiations with the Pakistan navy had collapsed. Shahzad wrote Al Qaeda orchestrated the attack as retribution for the arrest of naval officers who were suspected to have ties to Al Qaeda.
Human Rights Watch was told Shahzad would be returned home by Monday evening.
“The relevant people were informed that his telephone would be switched on first, enabling him to communicate with his family,” a Human Rights Watch official told Time magazine. “They were told that he would return home soon after.”
A Human Rights Watch researcher on Twitter released an email that Shahzad had forwarded him Oct. 18, 2010. The human-rights organization had instructions to release it if Shahzad disappeared.
Shahzad told Human Rights Watch he had been summoned to the ISI’s headquarters on Oct. 17, 2010, a day after he published another controversial story. He met with two ISI officials: Rear Admiral Adnan Nawaz and Commodore Khalid Pervaiz.
Pervaiz has just been appointed head of the naval base in Karachi that was just attacked, Time reported.
Shahzad’s October story alleged Pakistan had released the Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Baradar from custody. Baradar was Mullah Omar’s deputy and Shahzad reported he’d been freed to negotiate with the Pakistan army.
The Oct. 18 email, purportedly from the ISI to Shahzad, was labelled “For future reference.”
“I must give you a favour,” the ISI officer wrote to Shahzad. “We have recently arrested a terrorist and recovered a lot of data, diaries and other material during the interrogation. The terrorist had a list with him. If I find your name in the list, I will certainly let you know.”
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