Daniel Pearl’s killer being protected by Pak PM Imran Khan’s men

The order to give the terrorist home-like facilities in prison had come from the office of Brigadier Ijaz Ahmed Shah, who until recently was Imran Khan’s Interior Minister.

Terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is in a prison in Pakistan for killing American journalist Daniel Pearl, is getting home-like facilities in the Hyderabad Central Jail where he is incarcerated.

However, this has not come as a surprise to people who are aware of the development, as in the past too, incidents like this, which have been officially documented, have shown that he was getting facilities that included mobile phones.

In April 2020, a Sindh court had acquitted Sheikh of the murder charge while commuting his death sentence to seven years in prison and stated that since Sheikh had already spent 18 years in jail, the prison term would be considered as completed.

More recently, a two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court, on 24 December, directed security agencies not to keep Sheikh and the other accused under “any sort of detention” and declared all notifications of the Sindh government related to their detention as “null and void”.

The recent moves to ensure that Sheikh became a free man, official sources said, was being calibrated by some of the most trusted men of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Two sources aware of the matter told The Sunday Guardian that the order to ensure that Sheikh would continue to get home-like facilities in prison until he was freed, had come from the office of Brigadier Ijaz Ahmed Shah, who until recently was the Interior Minister in the Khan Cabinet.

The body of American journalist Daniel Pearl, as per his post-mortem report, was found buried in a dampsoil area, cut into 10 pieces, at the depth of 5 feet, spread across an area that was 4 feet in length and 2 feet in width.

Pearl was kidnapped by terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh on 23 January 2002 from Karachi. Sheikh beheaded and dismembered Pearl on 1 February, just nine days after kidnapping him. His body was found on 16 May, at a distance of less than an hour’s drive from Karachi.

In his 29-page deposition in front of a special antiterrorist court, Hyderabad (a copy is available with this newspaper) that took place on 21 June 2002, Sheikh denied his role in the abduction despite stating in the court, initially, that though he had been “arrested” on 13 February by Karachi police, he had been in ISI custody, or more specifically, at the house of Brigadier Ijaz Ahmed Shah,