Karachi: The Sindh High Court has acquitted three individuals and overturned the death sentence of the main person accused in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
SHC has turned the death sentence awarded to Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, the prime suspect in journalist Daniel Pearl murder case, in a seven-year jail term in addition to acquitting other three suspects, earlier handed life sentences, as it announced its verdict in the said case.
The bench further ruled that since Sheikh has been in prison for the last 18 years, his seven-year sentence will be counted from the time served, implying that he has already served his sentence.
The judgement was reserved last month by the two-judge bench of high court, headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, on the convicts’ appeals, pending for the past 18 years, and an appeal of the state seeking enhancement of the sentence after hearing arguments and examining the record and proceedings of the case.
Daniel Pearl – 38, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was conducting a research on religious extremism and was abducted on January 23, 2002, in Karachi, and beheaded the next month, reportedly by Al-Qaeda. The main convict, Ahmad Omer Sheikh, was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing the journalist, and his three accomplices, Fahad Naseem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Muhammad Adil, were sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000 each by a Hyderabad anti-terrorism court on July 15, 2002.
Rai Bashir and Khawaja Naveed Ahmed, the counsel for defence, stressed that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt against the convicted in any way aided or abetted participated in the alleged crime of kidnapping for ransom as argued by the prosecution. The defence stated upon the fact that most of the witnesses presented by the prosecution were police officers nd their testimonies could not be relied upon.
However, the deputy prosecutor-general, Saleem Akhtar, supported the anti-terrorism court judgment and submitted that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused beyond any reasonable doubt.
The court, after hearing the arguments of all the parties to the case, decided to acquit three of the convicted individuals, and reduce the sentence of the prime accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case.
