Freedom of speech!

Hellfired to Death!
Despardes.com; June 16, 2006

NEW JERSEY, JUNE 16 - The Pakistani journalist who reported on a U.S. airstrike that killed an al-Qaeda operative was found shot to death in a remote tribal region Friday six months after vanishing.

Hidayatullah Khan disappeared in December.

His abduction came days after he contradicted Pakistani army claims that the death of Abu Hamza Rabia, a leading Arab militant in al-Qaeda, and four others on December 1 was the result of an accidental munitions explosion. On the basis of photographs he took at the scene, Khan said Rabia was killed by Hellfire - a US missile fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Villagers said the explosion was caused by a missile fired from a plane or a drone.

Relatives found Khan's body 3km south of Mir Ali near the Afghan border on Friday.

He had been handcuffed and appeared to have been shot from behind while trying to escape, his brother, Ehsanullah, told the BBC.

Reporters Without Borders have reported that he had been shot several times in the head, probably on Thursday.

The journalist, who was in his mid-30s, had lost a lot of weight and had grown a long beard.

His brother told BBC the handcuffs were of a type usually used by security forces.

Khan's brothers said in a joint statement that he was kidnapped and killed by official security apparatus - meaning ISI.

Both the militants and the authorities denied knowledge of his whereabouts during the six months he was missing, said BBC.

During the six months he was missing, many Pakistani journalists had made it clear they suspected the military secret services of involvement.

Pervez Shaukat, President of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, had in February, accused the authorities or harassing those who were campaigning for Khan’s release. One government source told journalists in Peshawar, "The more noise you make, the more you prolong Hayatullah’s captivity."

After the US authorities were accused of holding the journalist, US Consul in Peshawar, Mike Spangler, said on May 10 that the United States had "read the reports on the disappearance of Hayatullah Khan (...), but is not in possession of any information about him."

He was arrested in an arbitrary fashion by US forces in 2002 when he was trying to cover al-Qaeda and Taliban activity in the border region. In 2003, the Pakistani military also harassed him the following year after he wrote about the misuse of army vehicles in Mir Ali.

'US missile'

Mr Khan was seized by unidentified gunmen on 5 December.

Days earlier, the Pakistani authorities had said an al-Qaeda commander they named as Abu Hamza Rabia had been killed with four others in a blast at an alleged militant hideout in North Waziristan.

The official version was that bomb-making materials had exploded by accident.

But locals said the men were killed by a missile fired from an unmanned US drone.

Mr Khan took photographs of what appeared to be pieces of a US missile at the scene.

Pakistan is a close ally of the US in its "war on terror" but reports of US strikes on Pakistani soil provoke anger among opponents of the government in Islamabad.

Hayatullah Khan worked for a Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper Ausaf and the European Press Photo Agency (EPA).

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said he had in the past been threatened by security forces, suspected Taliban members and tribesmen for his reporting.