After the Sindh government, the family of slain US journalist Daniel Pearl has decided to move the Supreme Court against the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) verdict that had acquitted the alleged kidnappers and murderers of Pearl.
The SHC on April 2 commuted death sentence of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh – convicted for kidnapping and murdering Pearl in 2002 – to seven years and acquitted three others who were serving life terms in the case – almost two decades after they were found guilty and jailed.
The Sindh High Court (SHC) on April 2 turned the death sentence awarded to Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, the prime suspect in the murder case, in a seven-year jail term in addition to acquitting the other three suspects, earlier handed life sentences.
Subsequently, on April 22, the Sindh government challenged the verdict in the top court and then approached the court again for an early hearing.
THE CASE:
Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was abducted on January 23, 2002, in Karachi and beheaded the next month, reportedly by Al-Qaeda. His murder sent shock waves throughout the world and was covered extensively in the Western media.
In July 2002, following the hearings, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Hyderabad had sentenced to death Sheikh and life term to other co-accused.
However, all four convicts had moved the SHC in 2002 challenging their convictions.
While arguing the case, the defense had maintained that the prosecution had “miserably failed” to prove its case against their clients beyond any reasonable doubt and prosecution witnesses were mostly policemen, whose testimonies could not be relied upon.
They had further contended that Naseem and Adil Sheikh’s confessions before a judicial magistrate were defective and not voluntary.
They had argued that the recovery of the laptop from Naseem was shown to have been made on Feb 11, 2002, while computer expert Ronald Joseph had deposed that he was given the computer for verification on Feb 4 and he examined the laptop for six days.
Deputy Prosecutor General Saleem Akhtar had supported the trial court’s verdict and submitted that the prosecution had proved its case against the appellants beyond a shadow of doubt and had requested the court to dismiss the appeals.
