Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday barred the Sindh government from releasing the main accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case as it began hearing arguments in a set of appeals challenging the Sindh High Court (SHC) decision.
The Sindh government as well as the parents of Pearl, who was the Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, had filed separate appeals against the April 2 order of the Sindh High Court that had modified the death sentence of the prime accused, Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, to seven-year rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs2 million. Saeed, who had already spent 18 years in prison on death row after being sentenced by an anti-terrorism court, was expected to be released after the high court verdict as his seven-year sentence was to be counted as time already served.
However, the Sindh government issued an order to detain Saeed and four others, whose convictions had been overturned, till Sept 30.
During the hearing, senior counsel Farooq Naek, representing the Sindh government, said that taxi driver Nasir Abbas had identified the accused in front of a magistrate during an identity parade. “Sheikh was arrested on January 13, 2002 and on April 22, 2002 charges were framed against him,” he said.
He added that there were a total of 23 witnesses in the case. Amir Afzal, the receptionist at Akbar International Hotel where Sheikh and Pearl met, also identified the accused during an identity parade, he said. “There were a lot of things going on behind the scenes,” Naek said, when the court asked where the conspiracy had taken place. When Sheikh met the journalist, he used the name Bashir, Naek said, adding that he gave a fake name because his intentions were not pure.
