Daniel Pearl parent's counsel winds up arguments over SC appeal

ISLAMABAD: The court as well as witnesses were issued threats in Daniel Pearl murder case, the counsel of the victim’s family told the Supreme Court in his arguments on Tuesday, ARY News reported.

“The case hearing was shifted to Hyderabad from Karachi after these threats,” Faisal Siddiqui argued in an appeal in the apex court before a bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam against acquittal of the accused by the Sindh High Court.

“Terrorism cases are used to be based on confessional statements,” Faisal Siddiqui, the counsel of the parents of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl, said while concluding his arguments.

“Who was Daniel Pearl, nothing could be said,” the defence counsel said while presenting his contentions in the court.

“The United States sent FBI agents for Daniel Pearl, no country sending its investigating agencies’ officials for a common citizen,” defence counsel Mehmood Shaikh said.

“He was a US national so as evidences were concocted and confessions were gleaned from the accused using torture,” the counsel alleged.

“There was no proof of any mutual meeting of the accused,” the counsel argued.

The court adjourned further hearing of the case till Wednesday (tomorrow).

Four convicts of the murder case, British national Ahmed Omer Saeed, co-accused Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil had moved the Sindh High Court (SHC) in 2002 challenging their convictions handed down by the Hyderabad Anti-Terrorism Court after finding them guilty of abducting and killing American Journalist Daniel Pearl.

The high court overturned the verdict of the ATC and acquitted the convicts on April 02, 2020.

The 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, was researching for a story on religious extremists in January 2002 in Karachi, when he was abducted and slain.