PAK EXTENDS CUSTODY OF PEARL KILLERS

Karachi, July 2: Pakistan’s Sindh province government on Thursday extended for another three months the custody of British-born al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides — Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil — whose sentences in the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 were overturned in April.

The move comes days after the Supreme Court on June 29 rejected a petition filed by the Sindh government to suspend a high court verdict that overturned their conviction. The court, however, allowed the province to take measures to keep them in custody. Their detention expired on July 1.

Superintendent of Karachi Central Prison, Hasan Sehtoo, told the media that the accused would stay behind the bars until September 30.

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 in 2002 on the alleged links between the country’s powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.