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Roots of Impunity

Sidebar: ‘In case something happens to me’


Shahzad resisted but came away with a sense of foreboding. He wrote up notes of the meeting and sent them to Nazir in an email the following day. Shahzad also forwarded copies to Ali Dayan Hasan, a Human Rights Watch representative, and Hameed Haroon, head of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, asking them to keep the notes “in case something happens to me.”

Here is the unedited text of the email to Nazir, which was introduced as evidence in the official inquiry into Shahzad’s murder: 

For future reference:



The meeting discussed the following issues.

1- Syed Saleem Shahzad told Rear Admiral Adnan that an intelligence channel leaked the story. However, he added that story was published only after a confirmation from the most credible Taliban source. Syed also explained that DG ISPR was sent a text message about the story, but he did not respond.




5- Syed Shahzad called it an intelligence leak but did not specify the source.

6- The conversation was held in an extremely polite and friendly atmosphere and there was no mince word in the room at any stage. Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir also offered Syed Saleem Shahzad a favor in following words.


Shahzad wrote a separate email to his Asia Times Online editor, Tony Allison, that recounted the meeting in similar terms. But his October 17 email to Allison, as described in the report of the official commission of inquiry, more explicitly laid out his fears. Shahzad said he considered Nazir’s parting words to be a “murder threat.”

In testimony before the commission, Nazir acknowledged receiving Shahzad’s email but denied making the comments attributed to him. He said he did not respond to Shahzad because he did not consider it “expedient.”

(Photo by AP)

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