SHC orders Sindh govt to appoint prosecutor in Daniel Pearl case

KARACHI: A bench of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday heard appeals of the accused detained in the Daniel Pearl case, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, who was abducted and later beheaded in Karachi in Year 2002 allegedly by the members of Al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Justice K.K. Agha when asked about prolonged delay in appeals of the accused in case, defence counsel replied that Raja Qureshi was appointed special public prosecutor in the case, who died five years ago but the government yet to appoint a public prosecutor after him.

How the government could act in an important case in such a manner, the bench exclaimed.

The bench ordered home department to appoint a special public prosecutor in the case as early as possible and produce the notification in court.

The court adjourned the case hearing until October 20.

An anti-terrorism court of Hyderabad, had awarded death sentence to key accused of the case Omer Saeed Sheikh on July 15 in 2002, on the charges of kidnapping and killing the US journalist, while his three accomplices Fahad Naseem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Muhammad Adil were handed life sentence with a fine of Rs 600,000 each.

The ATC had also directed the convicts to pay Rs two million to the victim’s widow, Marianne Pearl.

The state had filed an appeal seeking the life terms of three convicts to be converted in death penalty.

Daniel Pearl, a reporter of The Wall Street Journal, went missing in Karachi in January 2002 while he was working on a story. He was later found to be abducted and beheaded.

An Al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, claimed that he had personally beheaded the US journalist.