ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's principal spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), has issued an unusual public statement, in which it denied involvement in the killing of a Pakistani investigative journalist who was found dead on Tuesday.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, disappeared from the capital, Islamabad, on Sunday. Other journalists and human rights activists quickly suspected he had been abducted by intelligence services.

Killed ... Saleem Shahzad.

Shahzad told colleagues he had received several warnings about his work from those agencies, including as recently as October. At the time, Shahzad told a human rights activist, in an email, that ISI officials had summoned him to a meeting, at which they issued what he considered an oblique threat to his life.

The ISI statement, issued in the form of an article published by the state press agency, condemned Shahzad's death and said that the October meeting ''had nothing sinister about it''. The agenda of meetings like that one, the statement said, was to provide ''accurate information on matters of national security'' and notify people about any threats to their lives.