The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan, on Thursday, announced its decision to hear pleas against Sindh High Court (SHC) verdict in Daniel Pearl Murder Case on June 1.
As per the details, the three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed will commence the hearing of petitions against SHC verdict of Daniel Pearl Murder Case from June 1.
Sindh High Court, last month, had reduced the sentence of prime suspect Ahmed Omer Sheikh to seven years as he was previously awarded death penalty in the abduction and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Meanwhile, SHC under Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha had also acquitted the three co-accused suspects, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil.
Following the SHC verdict, Sindh government had announced to challenge the verdict in the top court.
It is to be noted that 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 Rs 500,000 each by a Hyderabad anti-terrorism court on July 15, 2002.
