Saleem Shahzad height - How tall is Saleem Shahzad?

A judicial commission led by Justice Saqib Nisar finalised its report investigating the circumstances around Shahzad's death on 9 January 2012 and to Prime Minister on 10 January 2012. The report blamed "various belligerents in the war on terror which included the Pakistani state and non-state actors such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda and foreign actors" but stopped short of blaming any single individual or organisation.

Just prior to his disappearance in May 2011, the journalist wrote in the Asia Times Online that al-Qaeda carried out the PNS Mehran attack after negotiations with the Navy for the release of officials, suspected of al-Qaeda links, had failed. According to Shahzad, the attackers were all from Ilyas Kashmiri's 313 Brigade of al-Qaeda.

In June 2011 Shahzad was awarded the Ischia International Journalism Award.

Shahzad disappeared on the evening of 27 May 2011 in Islamabad. He reportedly left his home around 5:30 pm local time that evening to take part in a TV show scheduled for 6:00 pm, but at 5:42 pm his cell phone was switched off and he failed to arrive at the television bureau. A complaint was lodged with the police the following morning. Elsewhere that morning, a labourer found his body, still wearing a suit, a tie and shoes, in the Upper Jhelum Canal while the zamindar of an upstream village notified police of an abandoned Toyota Corolla that later proved to be Shahzad's.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani ordered an immediate inquiry into the kidnapping and murder, and on 3 June Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik duly announced an investigative judicial commission headed by a Supreme Court justice. Bowing to unprecedented demonstrations from Pakistani media, PM Gilani signed an order in the early morning hours of 18 June 2011 establishing a judicial commission, led by Justice Main Saqib Nisar, to investigate the circumstances surrounding Shazad's death. The commission was to release its findings within six weeks.

The New York Times reported on 4 July 2011 that the Obama administration had "reliable and conclusive" intelligence that implicated senior officials of the ISI in directing the death of Shahzad. Subsequently, Admiral Michael Mullen stated that he believed that Shahzad's killing was "sanctioned by the [Pakistani] government" but added that he did not have a "string of evidence" linking the ISI. The Pakistani state-run news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan, said the soon-to-retire Mullen's charge was "extremely irresponsible." The Associated Press report of the APP comment went on to say:

According to friends and colleagues, the ISI warned the journalist at least three times prior to his death. In October 2010, Shahzad was summoned to ISI headquarters the day after publishing a sensitive article on Abdul Ghani Baradar's capture. Afterwards he wrote to Human Rights Watch (HRW) predicting that he might be detained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. According to HRW's Ali Dayan Hasan, he was "fairly sure that sooner or later something was going to happen". Shahzad informed Hasan in an email that he was threatened by an ISI official who had said: "I must give you a favor. We have recently arrested a terrorist and recovered a lot of data, diaries and other material during the interrogation. The terrorist had a list with him. If I find your name in the list, I will certainly let you know." In a June 2011 opinion piece for The News International, journalist Ahmed Quraishi stated the "agency's version is very straightforward: they met Shahzad at a registered government office about a story he did and asked him either to confirm his sources or retract the story because it damaged Pakistani interests." Nine days prior to his disappearance, Shahzad met with American journalist Dexter Filkins and told him, "Look, I'm in danger... I've got to get out of Pakistan."

Pakistan was the deadliest country for journalists in 2010, with at least eight killed in the line of duty, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Six died in suicide attacks, the group said in a report late last year. Despite the dangers, the media establishment in Pakistan has expanded rapidly over the past decade, and reporters here operate with freedoms denied in most developing countries. Still, many privately admit to getting occasional pressure from security and intelligence officials.

Saleem was an associate of the Pakistan Security Research Unit of the department of Peace Studies of the University of Bradford. In November 2006 he was held in Taliban captivity in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan for a few days. He wrote a detailed account of his days in captivity and time he spent with the Taliban in a series, "In the Land of the Taliban" published in Asia Times Online.

Syed Saleem Shahzad (Urdu: سید سلیم شہزاد ‎, 3 November 1970 – 30 May 2011) was a Pakistani investigative journalist who wrote widely for leading European and Asian media. He served as the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online (Hong Kong) and Italian news agency Adnkronos (AKI).

Syed Saleem Shahzad was born in Karachi on 3 November 1970.