An international press freedom group has called for a full investigation into the killing of a Pakistani journalist, abducted last year after reporting that an al Qaeda leader had been killed by a US missile.
The journalist, Hedyatullah Khan, was found dead on Friday. He had been shot in the back of the head, probably on Thursday, and dumped in mountains outside the town of Mir Ali, in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, an official said.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Pakistani government to find those responsible. "The abduction and killing of Hedayatullah must be fully explained," the group's executive director, Ann Cooper, said in a statement.
"We hold Pakistani authorities fully responsible for carrying out a vigorous investigation, and prosecuting the perpetrators of this terrible crime," she said.
Khan covered security issues for various publications including the Nation English-language newspaper and several foreign news organisations. Unidentified gunmen abducted him in Mir Ali on December 5.