Pearl convicts to remain in jail

PAKISTANI authorities renewed the detention orders last Thursday (1) for four men whose convictions in the kidnapping and killing of US journalist Daniel Pearl had been overturned, an official said.

A Karachi court sparked outrage in April when it acquitted British-born militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh

(above) and three other men convicted in Pearl’s 2002 kidnapping and beheading.

“We have received orders from the (provincial) government for them to be detained for a further three months,” a prisons official in Karachi’s Sindh province said.

Pakistan’s supreme court is expected to hear an appeal of the acquittals in September.

Pearl, 38, was south Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal when he was abducted in Karachi in January 2002 while researching a story about Islamist militants.

A graphic video showing his decapitation was delivered to the US consulate in the city nearly a month later.