Pak court overturns conviction in Daniel Pearl murder case
ESCAPING GALLOWS Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh’s death sentence commuted to seven-year jail by Sindh high court
NEW DELHI: Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, the terrorist convicted of the 2002 kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, had his death sentence commuted to a prison term of seven years by a Pakistani court on Thursday.
The Sindh high court delivered its ruling in response to appeals by Sheikh and three other men convicted in connection with the killing of the Wall Street Journal reporter in Karachi. The high court overturned the verdict of an anti-terrorism court.
Sheikh, 46, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, was freed by India with Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar and terrorist Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar in exchange for the passengers of Indian Airlines flight IC-814, which was hijacked by a group of Pakistani terrorists from Kathmandu to Kandahar in December 1999.
The murder conviction of Sheikh was overturned by the high court, which found him guilty of the lesser charge of kidnapping, for which he was given the seven-year prison term.
The court also acquitted and freed the three other men – Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil, who were earlier sentenced to life imprisonment.
“The court has commuted Omar’s death sentence to a sevenyear sentence,” defence lawyer Khawaja Naveed told Reuters. “The murder charges were not proven, so he has given seven years for the kidnapping.”
Naveed added, “Omar has already served 18 years, so his release orders will be issued sometime today. He will be out in a few days.” It was not immediately clear whether the Pakistan government will appeal against the high court’s ruling.
A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha announced its verdict on the appeals filed by the four men 18 years ago after hearing arguments by prosecution and defence lawyers and examining the records of the case.
The high court also dismissed the prosecution’s appeal that the life sentence given to the three other men should be enhanced to capital punishment.
Pearl, an American national and the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in Karachi on January 23, 2002 and later beheaded by his captors.
The four men were convicted by the anti-terrorism court on July 15, 2002. They filed appeals in the high court four days later, and the defence lawyers had contended the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the men participated in or abetted the crime.
Sheikh is currently being held in a prison in Hyderabad city of Pakistan’s Sindh province.
A former student of the London School of Economics, Sheikh was accused by officials of India and several Western countries of having long-standing ties with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Several media reports from 2002 said Sheikh had given himself up after Pearl’s murder to his ISI contact, Ijaz Shah, who is Pakistan’s current interior minister. Those reports also said Sheikh was held by the ISI for a week before he was handed over to police.
Pearl disappeared in Karachi on January 23, 2002, while researching links between Pakistani militants and Richard Reid, who was arrested the previous month on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes. Pakistani prosecutors said Saeed lured Pearl into a trap by promising to arrange an interview with an Islamic cleric, who police believe was not involved in the conspiracy.
A video later emerged of Pearl being beheaded. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, one of the key plotters of the 9/11 attacks, confessed in 2007 to beheading Pearl, according to a statement issued by the Pentagon.
Sheikh was also a member of the Harkat-ul-Ansar and was involved in the 1994 kidnapping of four foreign tourists – three from the UK and one from the US – in New Delhi. The tourists were subsequently freed and Sheikh was arrested by police. He was in prison in connection with the kidnappings when he was freed along with Masood Azhar.