Jihadi cleared over reporter’s beheading is free to return to UK
A FORMER public schoolboy who became a high-ranking Al Qaeda member could soon be back in Britain after a Pakistani court overturned his death sentence for beheading a US journalist.
Omar Sheikh, who was brought up in east London and studied maths at London School of Economics, has spent 18 years on death row after he was found to have orchestrated the kidnap and execution of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.
But Sindh High Court yesterday overturned his murder conviction and instead found him guilty of the lesser charge of kidnapping, cutting his sentence to seven years in jail.
One of Sheikh’s lawyers, Khwaja Naveed, said: ‘Omar has already served 18 years, so his release orders will be issued sometime today. He will be out in a few days.’
It was unclear last night whether the court’s decision would mean Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, will now be allowed back into Britain. The Home Office declined to comment last night.
Sheikh, who was 28 at the time of his conviction for killing 38-year-old Pearl, was brought up in Wanstead, east London, where his father ran a clothing business. After attending Nightingale Primary School near the family home, he transferred to the £8,000-a-year Forest School in nearby Snaresbrook. The 6ft 3in teenager was selected for the Great Britain arm-wrestling team, attending international championships in Spain and Switzerland.
He was first drawn to the Islamic cause while studying at London School of Economics and went on to train in Afghan camps, describing himself as a ‘revolutionary, a social scientist and a future conqueror’ whose sole purpose in life is to ‘wage war against the enemies of Islam’.
After he was arrested over Pearl’s murder, the US asked for his extradition but this was refused.
Yesterday Sindh High Court also acquitted three others accused in the case – Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib – who had been sentenced to life in prison.
‘Justice has been done to my clients,’ said Mr Naveed.
Mr Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, disappeared in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani militants and British shoe bomber Richard Reid. He was tricked into travelling alone into a dangerous area, believing he was about to be given an interview with Islamic radicals who had knowledge about Reid, who in 2001 had ignited explosives hidden in the soles of his shoes in a failed bid to blow up an American Airlines flight. But instead Mr Pearl was kidnapped and a ransom demand was made for $2million (about £1.4million at the time). They also demanded the release of Al Qaeda suspects held at the US camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Before his murder, which was filmed, Mr Pearl was made to say: ‘I am a Jew.’ Then his killer cut his throat and beheaded him.
At the time, his wife Mariane was seven months pregnant with their first child.
Amid worldwide fury and pressure from the US, police traced emails and telephone calls used to make the ransom demands to Sheikh, who gave himself up after innocent members of his family in Pakistan were taken into custody.
Sheikh admitted helping to organise the reporter’s abduction, but he denied being in Karachi when the murder took place.
In a further twist, in 2007, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, admitted decapitating Mr Pearl. The Al Qaeda No 3 pointed to features on his right arm and hand in the video of the murder to prove he did it.
‘I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,’ he said, according to a transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, where he had been sent after he was captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and where he remains to this day.
‘He will be out in a few days’