South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Pakistani court orders release of accused in Pearl beheading
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered Thursday the release of a Pakistani-British man convicted and later acquitted in the beheading of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
The court also dismissed an appeal of Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh’s acquittal filed by Pearl’s family and the Pakistani government.
A minister in the Sindh province where Sheikh is being held said the government had exhausted all options to keep him locked up — an indication that Sheikh could be free within days. The “Supreme Court is the court of last resort,” said Murtaza Wahab, Sindh’s law minister.
“The Pearl family is in complete shock by the majority decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to acquit and release Ahmed Omer Sheikh and the other accused persons who kidnapped and killed Daniel Pearl,” the Pearl family said in a statement released by their lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi.
The brutality of Pearl’s killing shocked many in 2002, years before the Islamic State group began releasing videos of militants beheading journalists. An autopsy report told of the gruesome details of the Wall Street Journal reporter’s killing and dismemberment.
Sheikh was convicted of helping lure Pearl to a meeting in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, during which he was kidnapped. Pearl had been investigating the link between Pakistani militants and Richard Reid, dubbed the “shoe bomber” after his attempt in 2001 to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Pearl’s body was discovered in a shallow grave soon after a video of his beheading
was delivered to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi.
The Pentagon in 2007 released a transcript in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, said he had killed Pearl.
“I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl,” the transcript quoted Mohammed as saying. Mohammad first disclosed his role while he was held in CIA custody and subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture. He remains in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay and has never been charged with the journalist’s death.
Sheikh had long denied any involvement in Pearl’s death, but the Supreme Court on Wednesday heard that he acknowledged writing a letter in 2019 admitting a minor role — raising hopes for some that he might remain behind bars.
Sheikh has been on death row since his conviction — even after his subsequent acquittal — and is being held in a Karachi jail. A three-judge Supreme Court ruled 2-1 to uphold Sheikh’s acquittal and ordered him released.
A lawyer for Sheikh said the court also ordered
the release of three other Pakistanis who had been sentenced to life in prison for their part in Pearl’s kidnapping and death. The three — Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib — all played lesser roles, such a providing a laptop or internet access to send photos of Pearl, with a gun to his head, with demands that all prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison be released. At the original trial all four were charged with the same crimes.
Washington previously said it would seek Sheikh’s extradition to the United States to be tried there, if the acquittal was upheld. The case seems certain to test the new Biden administration’s skill in dealing with Pakistan, a key ally in getting peace in Afghanistan.
The Pearl family urged the U.S. and Pakistani governments to take action to “correct this injustice.”
Later Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. was “outraged by the Pakistani Supreme Court decision to affirm the acquittals of those responsible” for Pearl’s slaying and underscored the administration’s commitment to secure justice for Pearl’s family.