Medical report: ‘Arshad Sharif died from multiple high-velocity gunshots’

A KENYAN medical report shows that journalist Arshad Sharif was killed due to multiple injuries caused by the firing of a high-velocity firearm from two different directions. 

The Geo News in its broadcast mentions a Chiromo Mortuary pathologist who wrote the post-mortem report for the Kenya Police that the senior Pakistani journalist died due to a “gunshot to the head and chest by use of a high-velocity firearm at intermediate range”.

The medical report, a copy of which is available with The News and Geo, registers the cause of death as “multiple injuries”. It says that the body of the journalist was “markedly pale” when brought to the mortuary, in the Nairobi downtown.

The first gunshot, it said, entered the left side of Arshad Sharif’s head/skull measured at 12cm by 3cm, damaging a large part of the brain/skull. The “graze gunshot wound left parietal area and scalp with penetration of skull causing a (part of the skull in the area was missing) stellate wound that measured 12 cm x 3cm.” Thereby, the first gunshot caused a “brain laceration” in the “left parietal” brain region.

The second gunshot, according to the report, entered into the “right upper back” with a wound measuring “1cm diameter with an abrasion. It was located 3cm from the midline and 30cm from the top of the head.” The gunshot exited on the “right side of the chest measuring 2cm x 1 cm” and “it had everted edges”. The report says that the second gunshot damaged Arshad Sharif’s “respiratory system” and the “penetrating bullet caused injury on the apex of the right lung, right hemothorax”.

After Arshad Sharif died at Magadi/Kiserian Road at the hands of policemen from the General Service Unit (GSU) on the night of 23rd October, 2022, his body was brought to Chiromo Mortuary by the police. Arshad Sharif was fatally shot while he was being driven in a motor vehicle registration number KDG 200M, owned by Waqar Ahmed who was not hurt in the attack. The car was being driven by Khurram Ahmed.

According to the post-mortem report, Arshad Sharif’s body was identified at the mortuary by Pakistani diplomats Saqlain Syedah, Pakistan High Commissioner to Kenya, and Muhammad Junaid. The body was brought to the mortuary at 2am on Monday morning, four hours after the shooting. Sharif’s body was repatriated to Pakistan the following day where tens of thousands of people attended his funeral in Islamabad.