Man accused of journalist’s beheading could be freed
A British public schoolboy-turned militant could soon be freed from jail in Pakistan after a court overturned his murder and terrorism convictions for killing the American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh’s death sentence was commuted to seven years in prison for kidnapping the
reporter in 2002.
The acquittal of the 46-year-old, former Londoner followed a lengthy appeal and speculation that the real killer was instead the al Qaeda mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Sheikh, a convicted militant reported to have had links to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, has been in prison since July 2002, making him eligible for immediate freedom, his lawyer said.
Prosecutors are likely to appeal against his release, however.
Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded while reporting on Islamist extremists in Pakistan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
Sheikh’s trial heard he had been in contact with Pearl and promised to introduce the reporter to a religious leader in Karachi.
Pearl was instead kidnapped at a rendezvous outside a restaurant and held in a compound on the city’s outskirts before he was murdered. A video of his killing was posted on the internet and delivered to the US consulate.
Sheikh was arrested and found guilty by a Pakistani terrorism court and three alleged accomplices were given life sentences.
All three accomplices were acquitted by the High Court in Sindh province. .
An investigation into Pearl’s death led by a former colleague, Asra Nomani, a Georgetown University professor, in January 2011, claimed the wrong men had been convicted.
The Pearl Pakistani authorities ‘‘knowingly used perjured testimony’’ to pin the murder on Sheikh.
Pearl had been seized and held in a ‘‘multifaceted, at times chaotic conspiracy’’ involving at least 27 men from three militant groups.
The real killer was Mohammed, better known as KSM, who was later arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and is being held in Guantanamo Bay, the report claimed.
While Sheikh had orchestrated the kidnap and originally considered a ransom, he was later sidelined when Mohammed became involved, the investigation found. The conspirators were ‘‘inept, plagued by bungling plans, a failure to cover their tracks, and an inability to operate cameras and computer equipment,’’ it said.
KSM is said to have previously admitted that he beheaded Pearl, but doubts
The acquittal of the 46-year-old, former Londoner followed a lengthy appeal and speculation that the real killer was instead the al Qaeda mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Project report concluded have surrounded the confession, because it may have been extracted under waterboarding torture.
Sheikh was born in the UK and studied at private school before spending three years at Pakistan’s elite Aitchison College in Lahore. He studied at the London School of Economics where he is believed to have become radicalised.
He later returned to South Asia, where he linked up with Pakistani militant groups at a time when Islamabad was backing jihadists fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Sheikh was jailed in India in 1994 for helping to kidnap three Britons and an American in India.
He was released in 1999 as part of a hostage swap with Pakistani militants who had hijacked an Indian airliner.
Sheikh was reported to be a close associate of Maulana Azhar Masood – founder of the banned Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad group.
After Pearl was killed, Sheikh handed himself in under a surrender overseen by Ijaz Shah, a former senior military intelligence officer who is now Pakistan’s interior minister.