JNN 01 June 2011 : A Pakistani investigative journalist has been found dead near the capital of Islamabad, following publication of his accounts alleging links between the Pakistani military and al-Qaeda militants.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, a correspondent for the Asia Times Online as well as Italian news agency Adnkronos International, went missing while on his way to appear on a television show in Islamabad on Sunday.
Shahzad, 40, was found dead in the Mandi Bahaudiin district outside the capital on Tuesday. Police said his body showed signs of torture, the Associated Press reported.

The reporter, who on Friday wrote about al-Qaeda’s alleged infiltration of the Pakistani navy, had earlier told a rights activist that he had been threatened by the country’s intelligence agencies.

Shahzad, a correspondent for the Italian news agency Adnkronos International (AKI) and Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online, disappeared May 29 after reporting that last week’s guerrilla attack on a Pakistani naval base was retaliation for alleged Navy arrests of officers suspected of involvement with al-Qaeda. Three calls to Pakistan’s military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, were unanswered yesterday.

Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistani representative for Human Rights Watch, said Shahzad had told him that he was under threat by Pakistan’s military intelligence agency.

“He told me he was being followed and that he is getting threatening telephone calls and that he is under intelligence surveillance,” Hasan said.

“We can’t say for sure who has killed Saleem Shahzad. But what we can say for sure is that Saleem Shahzad was under serious threat from the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and Human Rights Watch has every reason to believe that that threat was credible.”

Shahzad disappeared in the capital, Islamabad, while driving a few kilometers from his home to the studios of Dunya Television for a program on which he was to discuss alleged links between Pakistan’s armed forces and extremist groups, said Nasim Zehra, the current-affairs director at the channel.

He disappeared two days after the publication of an investigative report in the Asia Times Online on how al-Qaeda carried out an attack on Pakistani naval airbase of Mehran on May 22 to release two naval officials accused of having links to the notorious terrorist group.

His body was found outside Jhelum, a city 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Islamabad, Dunya and other Pakistani news channels reported. The body was retrieved from a canal about 10 kilometers from where his car was found, Asia Times reported.

An initial examination of the body showed possible signs of torture, the Associated Press reported, citing a police official. AKI cited an unnamed doctor who conducted an autopsy as saying that Shahzad appeared to have been beaten to death. He was 40 years old, and is survived by his wife, two sons aged 14 and seven, and a daughter aged 12, according to the websites of AKI and Asia Times.

Shahzad specialized in reporting on intelligence and security issues, and this month published a book on the recent evolution of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He reported to Human Rights Watch that ISI summoned him to a meeting in October after he published a story saying the agency had released the number- two Taliban leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, after arresting him last year, Hasan said in a phone interview.

Shahzad “told me the ISI officers demanded to know the source of his story and when he refused, the meeting ended with what constituted a threat,” Hasan said.

“In the months since then, he told me that he still was receiving threatening phone calls and was being followed,” Hasan said. “He felt he was in danger.”

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Pakistan was labeled the deadliest country for journalists in 2010.