ISLAMABAD: A senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has refused to cooperate with a fact-finding team investigating the circumstances of Arshad Sharif’s murder in Kenya, reported a local news channel on Saturday, while saying the slain journalist’s own family was not satisfied by the government’s probe.

A hugely popular talk show host, Sharif was shot by Kenyan police on October 23 when his vehicle sped up and drove through a checkpoint. Officials in Nairobi expressed regret over the incident, saying it was a case of “mistaken identity” during a search for a car involved in a child abduction case.

The two-member Pakistani fact-finding team, which also visited the African state, questioned the police narrative while calling Sharif “a victim of targeted assassination.”

The team also reached out to Murad Saeed, a senior PTI leader and a close aide of former prime minister Imran Khan, since he was thought to be in possession of Sharif’s laptop while asking him to hand it over to facilitate investigation.

According to Geo News, however, Saeed declined to cooperate with the team.

“In his letter to the fact-finding committee written on November 21,” the news channel said, “Saeed expressed reservations and refused to cooperate with the fact-finding committee.”

“The mother of Shaheed [martyr] Arshad Sharif has already expressed her reservations and concerns with respect to investigation into assassination of her son by the current government,” the PTI leader was quoted as saying in his correspondence with the team. “She has appealed for justice and expressed dissatisfaction over the [government] of Pakistan’s handling of the matter. She clearly stated: ‘I have no faith in the Pakistani government.’”

The fact-finding team had said in a written message to Saeed that its probe had revealed that he was “in possession of Apple MacBook of the deceased senior journalist Arshad Sharif.”

“Therefore, you are requested to provide the device of the deceased enabling the fact-finding team to ascertain the facts regarding [his] assassination,” the channel reported.

It added one of the team members requested Saeed to cooperate, saying the team had to present its report to the Human Rights Cell of the Supreme Court after being directed to do so.

In response, the PTI leader said in his note he was “willing to appear before the judicial commission constituted by the august Supreme Court and present all the information he has with respect to the matter.”