KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has asked the authorities to submit details of all the charges against Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was sentenced to death in 2002 for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
The sentence was overturned by the Sindh High Court on April 2. A case has been filed over the detention of Sheikh and three others after the court had approved their release. The court had commuted Sheikh’s sentence to seven years and a fine of Rs2,000,000 was imposed on him. Three others, Adil Sheikh, Salman Saqib and Fahad Nasim, were acquitted. They had previously been sentenced to life imprisonments.
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice KK Agha, also summoned details of charges against them. The advocate general (AG) Sindh appeared before the court and sought three days’ time to prepare his arguments.
Justice KK Agha asked the Sindh government to explain why Sheikh, Adil, Saqib and Nasim haven’t been released yet.
The Sindh advocate-general said the suspects were working with terrorist organisations.
“Stop speaking about the past and present evidence against them,” remarked Justice Agha.
The petitioners’ lawyer argued that they have been in jail for the last 20 years and it is unjust to extend their detention. Nadeem Ahmed Arzoo said that the Ministry of Interior’s notification should be declared null and void.
The petitioner’s lawyer stated that the government issued a notification regarding the detention of the accused after their acquittal under the maintenance of public order (MPO) without giving any plausible reason.
The home secretary said that the provincial government is empowered to detain the accused. He said the Supreme Court gave a stay order, suspending the SHC verdict that acquitted the accused.
The hearing was adjourned until November 26.
Pearl, 38, was the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal when he was abducted in Karachi in January 2002. He was researching links between militants in Pakistan and Richard C Reid, who is also known as ‘shoe bomber’ for trying to detonate a shoe bomb while on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001.
Pearl’s parents and the Sindh government had filed appeals in the Supreme Court (SC) against the SHC’s order. The Sindh government decided on July 15 to extend detention of the four men.
