Islamabad: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed appeals against the acquittal of British-born al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. The court ordered Sheikh’s release.
Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded in Pakistan while he was investigating the links between the country’s powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda. The beheading of the American journalist made international headlines.
Sheikh and his three aides were convicted and sentenced in the abduction and murder of Pearl in Karachi in 2002.
In 1999, Sheikh, along with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, was released by India and given safe passage to Afghanistan in exchange for the nearly 150 passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. Sheikh had been serving a prison term for kidnappings of Western tourists in India.
A three-judge bench of Pakistan’s apex court led by justice Mushir Alam on Thursday dismissed the Sindh government’s appeal against the Sindh high court’s decision to overturn Sheikh’s conviction in the Pearl murder case. One member of the bench opposed the decision.
In April 2020, a two-judge Sindh high court bench commuted Sheikh’s death sentence to seven years imprisonment. The court also acquitted his three aides – Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib – who were serving life terms in the case.
The Sindh government and Pearl’s family filed petitions in the Supreme Court, challenging the high court verdict. The Sindh government invoked the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1960 to keep the four men under detention.
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The detention of the four convicts was challenged in the Sindh high court, which on December 24, 2020 directed security agencies not to keep them under “any sort of detention” and declared all notifications of the Sindh government related to their detention “null and void”.
On December 25, 2020 the US expressed deep concerns over the order. The US State Department said that it will continue to monitor developments in the case and support the Pearl family while honouring the legacy of Pearl as a “courageous journalist”.
Last month, the US said it is ready to take custody of Sheikh to stand trial in the US. “We cannot allow him to evade justice for his role in Daniel Pearl’s abduction and murder,” acting US attorney general Jeffrey A. Rosen said.
Pearl’s parents, Ruth and Judea Pearl, had condemned the Sindh high court’s decision to release Sheikh.
“We refuse to believe that the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people will let such a travesty of justice tarnish the image and legacy of Pakistan,” they said in a statement in December.
(PTI)
