ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court decided to pass an order regarding release of the four accused allegedly involved in the killing of Daniel Pearl.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Mushir Alam, after hearing the arguments of Daniel Pearl’s parents’ lawyer, said they will pass an order on the custody of the accused.

The bench, on many hearings had turned down the Sindh prosecutor’s request to grant stay against the release of the accused, and had also not suspended the Sindh High Court (SHC)’s judgment.

A division bench of the SHC, Karachi, on April 2, 2020, acquitted the accused, Ahmad Omer Saeed Sheikh, Adil Sheikh, Salman Saqib, and Fahad Nasim.

It also held that the subject case does not fall within the purview of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and Omer Sheikh is entitled to both remissions in accordance with law and the benefit of Section 382-B, Criminal Procedure Code, 1898.

Trial court on 15-07-2002 had convicted Ahmad Omer Saeed Sheikh, and awarded him death sentence, while Adil Sheikh, Salman Saqib, and Fahad Nasim, were given life imprisonment under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Despite the SHC’s judgment, the Sindh government detained the accused under Maintenance of Public Order (MPO).

The SHC, therefore, on December 24, 2020, set aside the provincial government’s detention orders of four men, which it had ordered eight months ago to set them free.

American authorities expressed concern over the SHC’s ruling to release the accused.

In the last hearing, Faisal Siddiqui, counsel for Daniel’s parents – Ruth Pearl and Judea Pearl, – told the apex court that the main accused, Ahmed Omer Sheikh, wrote a letter to the SHC acknowledging role in abduction for ransom of Daniel Pearl, and knows who had murdered the bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal in Pakistan.

The accused has asked for remission in sentence, awarded by the trial court, he added.

Siddiqui had informed about the postmortem and the DNA reports, which confirmed that the decapitated body was of the Wall Street Journal’s journalist.

He, however, contended that the SHC in its April 2020 judgment ignored those facts due to the negligence of the prosecution.

Siddiqui informed that it came to his client’s knowledge for the first time after the SHC’s judgment.

He argued that even if this was the negligence of the prosecution, the SHC should have considered it.

He contended that the appeals were filed against the trial court’s judgment in the SHC, which announced the verdict after 18 years i.e. in April 2020.

The bench, however, questioned how additional documents about the murder of Daniel Pearl could be placed before it, when those were not provided to the SHC, and were not even before the trial court.

Siddiqui’s stance is that the apex court should not ignore these documents, if those could not be brought to the knowledge of the High Court due to the negligence of the prosecution.

“Was it not the duty of the High Court to recall the postmortem and DNA reports and additional documents regarding the matter,” the counsel had put this question before the Supreme Court.

Daniel Pearl was killed in Karachi in January, 2002.

His wife Mariane Pearl on 04.02.2002 had filed an FIR at Artillery Maidan Police Station, Karachi.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021