KEY POINTS

  • Swedish police identified the body that they had found in a river as Sajid Hussain
  • Hussain was chief editor and publisher of The Balochistan Times where he wrote about drug trafficking, forced disappearances and insurgency
  • He fled Pakistan in 2012 after receiving multiple death threats for his reporting
  • He was granted political asylum in Sweden in 2018

Swedish police identified last week (May 1) the body that they found in a river in Sweden as Sajid Hussain, an exiled journalist who went missing two months ago.

The body of the 32-year-old Hussain was discovered by authorities late last month in the Fryis river outside Uppsala, a town 70 kilometers north of the country's capital city, Stockholm.

Uppsala officials told the Associated Press that they initially launched a murder investigation, but suspicions of foul play had since died down after an autopsy was conducted on the body. Police spokesman Jonas Eronen, who spoke to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbldet, said they are “still waiting for a few more answers.”

Mexican journalist Javier Valdez was murdered in May 2017
Mexican journalist Javier Valdez was murdered in May 2017 AFP / PEDRO PARDO

Hussain was last seen on March 2 when he boarded a train in Stockholm on his way to Uppsala to collect the keys to a new apartment. However, police told Reporters Without Borders (RSF) that the journalist did not get off the Uppsala.

RSF, a non-profit and non-governmental organization that promotes free press and freedom of information, also pointed that Hussain may have been abducted “at the behest of a Pakistani intelligence agency,” according to BBC.

Originally from Balochistan, Pakistan, Hussain was the chief editor and publisher of the “Balochistan Times,” an online magazine that he started in 2015. Here, Hussain wrote about the country's struggle against drug trafficking, forced disappearances, organized crime and insurgency.

Hussain fled Pakistan in 2012 after receiving multiple death threats for reporting on corruption and human rights violations. His exploits against the Pakistan government led him to Sweden in 2017 and was given political asylum a year later.

Through BBC, Hussain's wife, Shehnaz, told a Pakistan newspaper that her husband sensed that “he was being followed” before he fled to Sweden.

“Some people broke into his house in Quetta when he was out investigating a story. They took away his laptop and other papers, too. After that, he left Pakistan in September 2012 and never came back,” he said, adding that Hussain also exposed a drug kingpin in Pakistan during his career as a journalist.

Hussain has been registered at Uppsala University since January where he studied Arabic language and was a part-time lecturer, said Fox News.

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