The lawyer of an Islamist militant sentenced to be hanged for his role in the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl said on Monday that he would use a top al Qaeda militant's confession to support an appeal.
British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, or Sheikh Omar, was sentenced to death in 2002 for the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, who was abducted while researching a story on Islamic militants.
But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States-said in a confession released by US authorities last week that he had killed Pearl.
Omar's lawyer, Basheer Ahmed, said his client's conviction was "a gross miscarriage of justice". "In the next court hearing, I am going to submit the recent statement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in which he said he himself had beheaded the US journalist," Ahmed told Reuters.
"From Day One, my contention was that the evidence presented in court was not strong enough to lead to the conviction of my client." Mohammed admitted involvement in more than 30 attacks or plots during a hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl," Mohammed said, according to a transcript of his statement.
Last year, Ahmed had said he would base an appeal on a memoir by President Pervez Musharraf, who wrote that while Omar masterminded Pearl's kidnapping, it was Mohammed who had beheaded him. Ahmed said that defence lawyers were trying to get Mohammed's original statement from US authorities before filing an appeal. He said he would also seek to summon those who interrogated Mohammed. Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and transferred to US custody.
Pearl, 38, was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002. He was later found beheaded. Omar was sentenced to death while three co-accused were jailed for life.
The convicts appealed to Sindh High Court in July 2002. The government also appealed to the same court, asking for enhancement of the punishment for the co-accused.