AGL 40.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
AIRLINK 129.06 Decreased By ▼ -0.47 (-0.36%)
BOP 6.75 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (1.05%)
CNERGY 4.49 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-3.02%)
DCL 8.55 Decreased By ▼ -0.39 (-4.36%)
DFML 40.82 Decreased By ▼ -0.87 (-2.09%)
DGKC 80.96 Decreased By ▼ -2.81 (-3.35%)
FCCL 32.77 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
FFBL 74.43 Decreased By ▼ -1.04 (-1.38%)
FFL 11.74 Increased By ▲ 0.27 (2.35%)
HUBC 109.58 Decreased By ▼ -0.97 (-0.88%)
HUMNL 13.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.81 (-5.56%)
KEL 5.31 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-1.48%)
KOSM 7.72 Decreased By ▼ -0.68 (-8.1%)
MLCF 38.60 Decreased By ▼ -1.19 (-2.99%)
NBP 63.51 Increased By ▲ 3.22 (5.34%)
OGDC 194.69 Decreased By ▼ -4.97 (-2.49%)
PAEL 25.71 Decreased By ▼ -0.94 (-3.53%)
PIBTL 7.39 Decreased By ▼ -0.27 (-3.52%)
PPL 155.45 Decreased By ▼ -2.47 (-1.56%)
PRL 25.79 Decreased By ▼ -0.94 (-3.52%)
PTC 17.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.96 (-5.2%)
SEARL 78.65 Decreased By ▼ -3.79 (-4.6%)
TELE 7.86 Decreased By ▼ -0.45 (-5.42%)
TOMCL 33.73 Decreased By ▼ -0.78 (-2.26%)
TPLP 8.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.66 (-7.28%)
TREET 16.27 Decreased By ▼ -1.20 (-6.87%)
TRG 58.22 Decreased By ▼ -3.10 (-5.06%)
UNITY 27.49 Increased By ▲ 0.06 (0.22%)
WTL 1.39 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.72%)
BR100 10,445 Increased By 38.5 (0.37%)
BR30 31,189 Decreased By -523.9 (-1.65%)
KSE100 97,798 Increased By 469.8 (0.48%)
KSE30 30,481 Increased By 288.3 (0.95%)
Pakistan

Daniel Pearl murder case: Omar Sheikh may be released from Karachi jail in hours

  • Suspects Omar Saeed Sheikh and others were detained by authorities under Section 11 EEEE (preventive detention for inquiry) of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
  • In a separate case, the Sindh government and Daniel Pearl's family have appealed against the Sindh court's April decision in the country's Supreme Court.
  • The court ordered to place the names of the accused on the no-fly list
Published December 24, 2020

Following the immediate release order from the Sindh High Court (SHC) Omar Saeed Sheikh could be released from Karachi Central Jail in a few hours, Samaa TV citing its sources reported on Thursday.

Earlier, the Court had declared the detention orders of the accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case as null and void and ordered their immediate release from jail, local media reported on Thursday.

As per details, the court issued the verdict on a petition filed by the suspects' lawyer against their detention.

The court directed the authorities to immediately release the prime suspect in Daniel Pearl's murder case Omar Saeed Sheikh and others Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil, and Salman Saqib. All the suspects were detained under Section 11 EEEE (preventive detention for inquiry) of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The SHC also ordered to place their names on the no-fly list. The court observed that men have been in rotting in jail for 18 years.

On April 2, 2020, the court heard the appeals of the suspects against the sentence. It commuted Sheikh’s death sentence to seven years and fined him Rs2,000,000. Sheikh has already spent 18 years in prison on death row and his seven-year sentence for kidnapping was counted as time served.

According to the law, the government may issue preventive detention of any person accused of terrorism for a period of 90 days and it cannot be challenged in court. The first notification was issued the day the men were acquitted and the second one three months after they completed their detention period.

Now, the court has ruled that the use of the emergency detention powers is not justified in Daniel Pearl's case. Moreover, the court has said that Sheikh cannot be kept under "any sort of detention" and declared the Sindh government's detention notifications "null and void". He is expected to be free in the coming days.

In a separate case, the federal government and Daniel Pearl's family have appealed against the Sindh court's April decision in the country's Supreme Court. The next hearing in that separate case is likelty to take place in January 2021.

American journalist Daniel Pearl disappeared on January 23, 2002, in Karachi. A videotape received by U.S. diplomats in February 2002 confirmed that the 38-year-old journalist was dead.

Authorities later arrested Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a former student at the London School of Economics, and three others who were convicted in July 2002. But in April, a court overturned the murder conviction of Saeed, a British Pakistani national, though it found him guilty of kidnapping Pearl and sentenced him to seven years.

Comments

Comments are closed.