Daniel Pearl’s ‘killer’ may walk free
karachi, april 2
A Pakistani court on Thursday overturned the death sentence of British-born top al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was convicted in the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack.
“Mockery of justice”: Daniel’s father
Daniel’s parents called the judgment a mockery of justice and demanded that the prosecution in Pakistan should appeal the court verdict. “Anyone with a minimal sense of right and wrong now expects Faiz Shah, prosecutor general of Sindh to do his duty and appeal this reprehensible decision to the Supreme Court of Pakistan,” Judea Pearl, Daniel’s father tweeted.
Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story on the alleged links between the country’s powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.
Sheikh, who was the mastermind behind abduction and killing of Pearl, was arrested from Lahore in February 2002 and sentenced to death five months later by an anti-terrorism court.
Sheikh, along with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, were released by India in 1999 and given safe passage to Afghanistan in exchange for the nearly 150 passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. He was serving prison term in India for kidnappings of Western tourists in the country.
On Thursday, the Sindh High Court found 46-year-old Sheikh guilty of the lesser charge of kidnapping and commuted his death sentence to seven years in prison. Sheikh has been in jail for the past 18 years. A two-judge Bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha also acquitted the three others — Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil —serving life sentences in the case.
The Bench announced the verdict on appeals filed by four convicts 18 years ago. Sheikh’s lawyers, Khawaja Naveed and Rai Bashir, told the media that since he had already been in prison for 18 years he could go free immediately. — PTI
