ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Saturday fixed a hearing in the review petition filed by the Sindh government against the acquittal of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the principal suspect in the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Umar Atta Bandial, will hear the petition on Monday. Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Muneeb Akhtar are the other members of the bench.
Meanwhile, the federal government decided to become a party in the abduction and murder case. A spokesman at the attorney general’s office, while confirming the report, said that the federal government will file an application in the SC to become a party in the case. He maintained that the government will plead with the apex court to form a larger bench for hearing of the review petition filed by the Sindh government in the case.
The Sindh government on Friday through its prosecutor general had moved the petition in the apex court, pleading with it to review its decision of acquitting the main accused.
Headed by Justice Mushir Alam, a three-judge bench that also comprised Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Yahya Afridi, ordered that Sheikh, Fahad Naseem Ahmed, Syed Salman and Sheikh Muhammad Adil be released forthwith, if not required to be detained in connection with any other case.
The convicts had moved the Sindh High Court (SHC) in 2002 challenging their convictions handed down by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Hyderabad after finding them guilty of abducting the journalist.
The high court overturned the verdict of the ATC and acquitted convicts in April last.
Subsequently, the Sindh government filed an appeal in the SC challenging their acquittal.
Pearl was abducted on January 23, 2002, in Karachi and beheaded the next month, reportedly by Al-Qaeda. Omar Sheikh had been convicted of helping lure Pearl to a meeting in Karachi in which he was kidnapped.
Prior to his kidnapping, the journalist had been investigating the link between reportedly Pakistan-based militants and Richard Reid, the notorious “Shoe Bomber” who attempted to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes.
In July 2002, following the hearings, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Hyderabad had sentenced to death Omar Sheikh and life term to other co-accused. However, all four convicts had moved the SHC in 2002 challenging their convictions.
In his autobiography, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, former president Pervaiz Musharraf had claimed that Sheikh, a British national and a student at the London School of Economics (reports suggest he did not graduate), was hired by MI6 to engage in “jihadi operations”, adding that “at some point, he probably became a rogue or a double agent”.
