SC serves notice on Sindh in Pearl murder

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Sindh government regarding the lack of medical and other facilities being provided to the prime suspect in the 2002 murder of slain American reporter Daniel Pearl. The notice was issued following the complaint by three of the four accused in the case who said the provincial government had not been providing the facilities to them.

During the hearing, Mahmood A. Sheikh, the counsel for the accused said his clients penned a letter to him complaining about the lack of facilities. At this, Justice Umer Ata Bandial announced to issue a notice to the Sindh government.

“Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is not allowed to move freely in the apartment,” the counsel said, adding that, “He is allowed to meet only his son and wife, and not his mother-in-law, uncle and aunt.”

The counsel said that his clients were locked in rooms during the night.

Responding to the complaints, Punjab Additional Advocate General Faisal Chaudhry assured the court that there will be no restriction on the movement of Sheikh in the apartment or on meeting his relatives.

Sheikh (no relation with the counsel) was shifted to Lahore from Karachi for security reasons in March after the Supreme Court ordered his release, while also dismissing an appeal against his acquittal by Pearl’s family. Chaudhry further clarified that the accused are not locked in their rooms, rather the apartment is locked at night. The bench adjourned the hearing of the case for an indefinite period.

Pearl, 38, was abducted on January 23, 2002, in Karachi and beheaded the next month, reportedly by Alqaeda. Omar Sheikh had been convicted of helping lure Pearl to a meeting in Karachi in which he was kidnapped.

Prior to his kidnapping, the journalist had been investigating the link between reportedly Pakistan-based militants and Richard Reid, the notorious “Shoe Bomber” who attempted to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes.

In July 2002, following the hearings, an antiterrorism court in Hyderabad had sentenced to death Omar Sheikh and life term to other co-accused. However, all four convicts had moved the Sindh High Court in October challenging their convictions.

In his autobiography, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, former president Pervaiz Musharraf had claimed that Sheikh, a British national and a student at the London School of Economics (reports suggest he did not graduate), was hired by MI6 to engage in “jihadi operations”, adding that “at some point, he probably became a rogue or a double agent”.