Pearl murder convict Sheikh to walk free

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of Omar Saeed Sheikh, one of three terrorists freed by India in 1999 in exchange for a hijacked airliner, who was later convicted of beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl.

The court dismissed an appeal against the overturning of his conviction for the murder of Pearl. The development was described by India as “a travesty of justice”.

A three-judge bench upheld the Sindh high court’s order of April last year to acquit Sheikh and three other men convicted of the 2002 abduction and murder of Pearl. The apex court also dismissed the Sindh provincial government’s appeal against the high court’s ruling.

The bench said it was acquitting Sheikh by “extending the benefit of doubt to him”. It directed authorities to release the four men “forthwith if not required to be detained in connection with any other case”.

India said the development reflected Pakistan’s lax attitude towards prosecuting known terrorists, reiterating its demand for Pakistan to take “sustained, verifiable, credible and irreversible action” against terrorism and terror funding emanating from territory under its control.

“It is also a travesty of justice not to find Omar Saeed guilty of any charges in this heinous act of terror,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told reporters. “I’d mentioned earlier about the very low conviction rate in Pakistan when it comes to sentencing of terror accused, and this case truly demonstrates the lack of any seriousness on the part of Pakistan on taking action on terror-related issues.”

Sheikh, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, was the main suspect in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl. Pearl, 38, was South Asia bureau chief for WSJ when he was abducted in Karachi in 2002 while researching links between militants in Pakistan and Richard Reid, known as the “shoe bomber” for trying to detonate a bomb on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001. Pearl was later killed by his captors in Karachi.

Sheikh was arrested in India in 1994 and imprisoned over the kidnapping of one American and three British tourists. He was freed with Jaish-e-mohammed founder Masood Azhar and terrorist Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar in exchange for passengers of Indian Airlines flight IC-814, which was hijacked by a group of Pakistani terrorists from Kathmandu to Kandahar in 1999.

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