Latif Afridi, a champion of human rights who took on the Taliban and the country’s notoriously powerful military, was shot six times at point-blank range.

The murder is believed to be the result of a blood feud between relatives within his family.

“Don’t shoot, I had a feud with him and I have taken my revenge,” the killer reportedly said after the attack.

A video of the killing shows a berobed Mr Afridi slumped in an easy chair.

The court system in Pakistan is weighed down by a backlog of millions of cases, which results in people taking justice into their own hands. Disputes typically occur over the ownership of land and can claim many lives.

Iqbal Afridi, an MP for Khyber district, told a local paper: “No doubt, [Latif Afridi] is the latest victim of a long-running family feud.”

Adnan Samiullah Afridi, the law student accused of carrying out the killing, was taken into police custody and charged with murder.

He is the son of Samiullah Afridi, a senior lawyer who represented Shakeel Afridi, the doctor who was jailed for allegedly helping the CIA run a fake vaccination programme intended to reveal the hideout of 9/11 architect Osama bin Laden, who was himself assassinated by U.S. special operations forces at his compound in Abbottabad in 2011.

Samiullah Afridi received death threats after the doctor was jailed. These threats were made good in 2015 – a splinter group of the Taliban claimed responsibility for his murder.

Four years later, Wazir Akbar, a first cousin of Latif Afridi was murdered by unnamed men in a killing believed to have been carried out by Samiullah Afridi’s family. Following unsuccessful attempts at mediation, a judge, Aftab Afridi, was murdered in 2021 – he was the brother of Samiullah. His wife grandson and daughter-in-law were also murdered.

Latif Afridi condemned that killing and said he had played no part in it, but Samiullah’s family blamed him.