KARACHI: a provincial court in Pakistan On Thursday he ordered the release of the man accused of the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, his defense attorney said.
The Sindh High Court release order overturns a Pakistani high court decision that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the main suspect in Pearl’s murder, should remain in detention, his lawyer said. Sheikh was acquitted of Pearl’s murder earlier this year, but has been detained while Pearl’s family appeals the acquittal.
Sheikh’s lawyer, Mehmood A Sheikh, with whom he is not related, asked that his client be released immediately.
“The arrest warrant is annulled,” he said. Faisal Siddiqi, the attorney for the Pearl family. Sheikh will be released until the appeal is completed, he said, but will be returned to prison if the family succeeds in overturning the acquittal.
Sheikh was sentenced to death and three others received life sentences for their role in the plot. But the provincial court acquitted him and three other people in April, a move that shocked the US government, Pearl’s family, and journalism advocacy groups.
The acquittal is now being appealed separately by both the government and Pearl’s family. The government has opposed Sheikh’s release, saying it would endanger the public. The Supreme Court will resume its hearing on January 5.
Sheikh had been convicted of helping to lure Pearl to a meeting in the Pakistani port city in southern Pakistan. Karachi, in which he was kidnapped. Pearl had been investigating the link between the Pakistani terrorists and Richard C Reid, dubbed the “Shoe Bomber” after trying to fly a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in their shoes.
A gruesome video of Pearl’s beheading was sent to the US consulate. The 38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter from Encino, California, was kidnapped on January 23, 2002.
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