ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani court convicted five men yesterday of murdering a young television reporter, his brother said, marking the first time anyone has been convicted for killing a Pakistani journalist.
Wail Babar, a 28-year-old journalist for Geo news, covered the seamy side of Karachi, a sweltering port megacity of 18 million people. He reported on drugs, crime, militancy and deadly turf struggles between the city’s main political parties.
He was shot dead on January 13, 2011 as he left work.
One of the men convicted, Mohammad Shahrukh Khan, said in a videotaped confession posted on YouTube that he had been asked to follow Babar home from work by an activist from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the party that rules Karachi.
The MQM denies any link to Khan or the other killers.
Khan said he followed Babar and called in the route to the MQM activist. Moments later, a man he had met at the activist’s house shot Babar to death, he said.
REUTERS
