Court accepts appeal by slain U.S. reporter’s family

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday accepted an appeal by the family of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl seeking to keep a Britishborn Pakistani man on death row over the beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter.

The court delayed until next week hearing the appeal over the lowercourt acquittal of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been on death row since his conviction in 2002 over Pearl’s killing.

The Supreme Court ordered Sheikh to remain in custody but Faisal Siddiqi, the lawyer for Pearl’s family, told the Associated Press on Monday the court will decide next week whether Sheikh will remain imprisoned during the course of the appeal, which could be years.

Sheikh had been convicted of helping lure Pearl to a meeting in the southern port city of Karachi in which he was kidnapped. Pearl had been investigating the link between Pakistani militants and Richard Reid, dubbed the “Shoe Bomber” after trying to blow up a flight from Paris to the U.S. with explosives hidden in his shoes.

The lower court’s April ruling acquitted Sheikh and three other accomplices, who had been sentenced to life in jail for their role in the plot. The court found Sheikh guilty on a single lesser charge of abduction, which he is also appealing.

The acquittal stunned the U.S. government, Pearl’s family and journalism advocacy groups.

“We felt like (it was) a thunderstorm that is about to reopen our pains of 2002,” Pearl’s father Judea Pearl told the Associated Press in an email Monday. “Pakistan’s judicial system caved to either inside or outside pressure to send a message of impunity to extremist elements worldwide.”

The Pearl family’s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi, said after Monday’s court hearing that there was “ample evidence” to overturn Sheikh’s appeal and return him to death row.

“There is eyewitness evidence, there is forensic evidence, there are confessional statements,” Siddiqi said.

The Sindh provincial government also is appealing Shiekh’s acquittal.

Pearl, 38, of Encino (Los Angeles County) was abducted Jan. 23, 2002. In Sheikh’s original trial, emails between Sheikh and Pearl presented in court showed Sheikh gained Pearl’s confidence sharing their experiences as both waited for the birth of their first child. Pearl’s wife, Marianne Pearl, gave birth to a son, Adam, in May 2002.