-Daniel Pearl case
From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) announced its verdict on Thursday on the appeals filed by four convicts in the case of the slain American journalist Daniel Pearl, media reported on Thursday.
A two-judge SHC bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha has pronounced three of the four accused ‘not guilty’ while the prime accused Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh’s death sentence has been overturned into a seven year jail sentencing.
The judgement was reserved last month on the convicts’ appeals, pending for the past 18 years, and an appeal of the state seeking enhancement of the sentence after hearing arguments and examining the record and proceedings of the case.
The court in its ruling says that none of the accused have been proven as murderers of the slain journalist while Ahmed Omer Saeed was convicted of kidnapping the deceased.
The British national, Ahmed Omer Saeed co-accused Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil moved the SHC in 2002 challenging their convictions handed down by the Hyderabad ATC after finding them guilty of abducting and killing Pearl.
The 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl was researching a story on religious extremists, in January 2002 in Karachi.
