The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
July 5, 2011

U.S. Officials: Pakistan Spy Agency Deliberately Killed Journalist 
-------------------------------------------------------------------



There are some new developments in the case of the murdered Pakistani
journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad. Unnamed Obama administration officials
have told the New York Times that senior officials of the Pakistani spy
agency, the ISI, ordered the killing of Shahzad in an effort to silence
him. One U.S. official said, “Every indication is that this was a
deliberate, targeted killing that was most likely meant to send shock
waves through Pakistan’s journalist community and civil society." Ali
Dayan Hasan, the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, first tied the
ISI to Shahzad's killing. In a recent interview with Democracy Now!,
Hasan said Shahazad was targeted for reporting on links between the ISI
and militant groups.

Ali Dayan Hasan, Human Rights Watch: “Saleem Shahzad investigated
essentially wrote about because he wrote about al-Qaeda and the Taliban
and that whole terrain of counter-terrorism and terrorism in Pakistan
what he basically concentrated a lot on were links between Pakistani
intelligence and military on the one hand, and elements of al-Qaeda and
Taliban on the other. And infiltration both ways but particularly in
Pakistani intelligence structures and military structures including the
navy air force and the military itself the army itself.”



.