ISLAMABAD: A British-born militant sentenced to death for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl was ordered to be let out of prison Thursday by the Supreme Court (SC) in the latest twist to a legal saga spanning nearly two decades.
The court said, however, that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh should remain in custody in accommodation similar to that given to prison staff while another appeal is considered. It allowed the government to move the militant to Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail.
Sheikh and three accomplices have been behind bars since 2002 when they were convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Pearl — at the time the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.
Since then they have won and lost a series of appeals and counter-appeals in connection with the case, with the apex court last year overturning their murder convictions.
That decision meant they had completed their sentences on the kidnapping charge, and the court in January ordered them to be released.
They were kept in custody, however, as the provincial and federal governments — as well as Pearl’s family — launched another petition to keep them behind bars.
On Thursday the court said they should be confined to prison staff accommodation.
“We are not satisfied with the continuous detention of this person,” Justice Umar Ata Bandial said. “The detainee Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh shall be accommodated in a government building in which officers of jail reside.”
He was moved to Lahore from Karachi on Monday for “security reasons”.
It was not immediately clear when the judges would make a final ruling on the case proper, or if prosecutors have exhausted all avenues of appeal.
Pearl, 38, was abducted on January 23, 2002, in Karachi and beheaded the next month, reportedly by Al-Qaeda. 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 Sheikh and life term to other co-accused. However, all four convicts had moved Sindh High Court (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”.
With additional input from AFP
