Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) on Monday, accepted Sindh government’s appeals in Daniel Pearl Murder Case.
The Supreme Court accepted Sindh government’s appeal and made Daniel Pearl’s parents party in the case.
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During the hearing, Sindh government’s lawyer Farooq H. Naek highlighted that the Ahmed Omer Sheikh – the prime accused in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, has already confessed to the crime.
In response, Justice Qazi Ameen directed Farooq H. Naek to prove the confession via official records.
Justice Qazi Ameen noted that verdicts of murder trials cannot be announced on fictional basis.
Daniel Pearl Murder Case
Daniel Pearl – 38, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was conducting a research on religious extremism and was abducted on January 23, 2002, in Karachi, and beheaded the next month, reportedly by Al-Qaeda.
The main convict, Ahmad Omer Sheikh, was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing the journalist, and his three accomplices, Fahad Naseem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Muhammad Adil, were sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000 each by a Hyderabad anti-terrorism court on July 15, 2002.
Suspects’ defense counsel comprising of Rai Bashir and Khawaja Naveed Ahmed, had stressed that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt against the convicted in any way aided or abetted participated in the alleged crime of kidnapping for ransom as argued by the prosecution.
The defense stated upon the fact that most of the witnesses presented by the prosecution were police officers and their testimonies could not be relied upon.
Meanwhile, the deputy prosecutor-general, Saleem Akhtar supported the anti-terrorism court judgment and submitted that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused beyond any reasonable doubt.
The court, after hearing the arguments of all the parties to the case, decided to acquit three of the convicted individuals, and reduce the sentence of the prime accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case.
