Nicosia, Cyprus. The inquest into the death of 24-year-old Shoaib Khan is set to begin at the Nicosia district court on Wednesday. Activists following the case have raised concerns about transparency, accountability and access to material related to the investigation.
Incident and background
Khan was found dead in the Nicosia suburb of Strovolos on January 6 last year. He had been among a group of third-country nationals attempting to cross the buffer zone in Potamia, a village adjacent to the buffer zone.
He was shot in the back with a police weapon as officers attempted to immobilise a convoy crossing the buffer zone.
Activists’ statements and concerns
A group of activists, the Justice for Shoaib Khan Initiative, said on Tuesday that “up until now, the state and the police have treated Shoaib Khan’s murder as a natural outcome of migration policy enforcement, rather than as a killing that should have never occurred and should be investigated as such”.
The group said “concerns about transparency and accountability have surrounded the handling of this case from the very beginning”, citing that police initially did not report that Khan had been shot.
It described the inquest as “a crucial opportunity to bring this case into the public eye, expose the systemic failures that allowed this killing to occur with impunity, and demand answers about Shoaib’s death”.
Questions raised ahead of the inquest
The group asked why the police’s anti-poaching unit responded in Potamia, stating the unit typically does not deal with migration-related issues, and who in the police chain of command “made the operational decision to stop the vehicles”.
It also asked, “how is it possible that police officers, who have supposedly undergone training on precision shooting, repeatedly missed their stated target of shooting only in the air and the tyres of the first vehicle but instead hit two cars, fatally shooting Shoaib Khan in the back?”
The initiative questioned why the officers involved were not immediately suspended and investigated, and said Khan’s family’s lawyers have been “denied full access to statements, evidence and investigative material”. It asked whether further information “continues to be withheld”.
The group said, “Shoaib Khan’s killing is not an isolated incident. It is part of a wider system of border violence, where racialised migrants are subjected to extreme force and dehumanisation. We stand in solidarity with all those affected by border regimes that normalise death, violence and injustice.”
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