Pearl’s family set to challenge Pak SC order freeing Sheikh

ISLAMABAD: The family of American journalist Daniel Pearl will challenge an order by Pakistan’s top court to release a British-born militant acquitted of masterminding his kidnapping and brutal murder in 2002.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other men last year, triggering outrage from the US.

Pearl was the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal when he was abducted and beheaded by jihadists in

Karachi in January 2002 while researching a story about Islamist militants.

“The Pearl family intends to file a review petition against the illegal and unjust majority decision,” parents Ruth and Judea Pearl said in a statement that was tweeted by the murdered journalist’s friend and former Wall Street Journal colleague Asra Nomani.

They join both the federal government and Sindh provincial government - of which the city of Karachi is the capital - in launching a plea for the latest verdict to be reviewed.

Lawyers for Pearl’s family have argued that Sheikh played a crucial role in organising the abduction and detention of the journalist before ordering his captors to kill him.

Defence lawyers, however, say he was a scapegoat and sentenced on insufficient evidence

“It is beyond belief that Ahmad Omar Sheikh - who after 18 years of lies, had finally admitted in a handwritten letter to the court his role in the kidnapping for ransom of Daniel Pearl - has been given a clean slate and let loose once again upon the world to continue his international terrorist activities,” Pearl’s family said in the statement.