Daniel Pearl case: SHC seeks detention record of suspects

 

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday heard appeals of detained suspects in the Daniel Pearl case, a US journalist who was killed in Karachi in 2002 while working on a story, ARY News reported.

The court has sought the detention record of suspects, from jail officials, who were taken into custody for investigation into the case.

The lawyer representing the suspects said he believed that the life term of his clients had completed. He said none of 21 witnesses in the case were an eye witness.

The state prosecution lawyer said the government of Sindh had approached the court regarding extension in term doled out to suspects in the case.

The anti terrorism court had given death sentence to key suspect Omer Saeed Sheikh in 2002. Sheikh, the main convict, has challenged the death sentence awarded to him by the anti-terrorism court (ATC).

The main accused, Sheikh, was sentenced to death on the charges of kidnapping and killing the US journalist, while his three accomplices – Fahad Naseem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Muhammad Adil – were sentenced life imprisonment with a fine of Rs500,000 each by the ATC, Hyderabad on July 15, 2002. The court also directed the convicts to pay Rs2 million to the victim’s widow, Marianne Pearl.

In the meantime, the state had also filed an appeal seeking enhancement of the three co-accuseds’ life terms to capital punishment.

Shaikh’s accomplices have also approached the court against their convictions.

Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was kidnapped in the city of Karachi in January 2002 while he was researching a story on militants. He was later found beheaded.