The Supreme Court has issued its detailed judgement on the January 2002 brutal murder case of Daniel Pearl, South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. It may be recalled that in its short order earlier this year, the court had acquitted by a majority two-to-one verdict the principal accused, Umar Sheikh, and three other suspects. The bench was seized of the appeals filed by the distraught parents of the slain journalist and the Sindh government, challenging the April 2020 Sindh High Court’s decision to overturn an anti-terrorism court’s (ATC) conviction of Umar on charges of kidnapping and murder, commuting his death sentence to seven-year rigorous imprisonment along with a Rs 2 million fine. By then he had already served nearly 20 years in solitary confinement.

Recording the reasons for acquittal, author of the judgement Justice Tariq Masood pointed out serious weaknesses in the prosecution’s case, noting that the evidence furnished during the trial was full of factual and legal defects. Regarding each and every piece of evidence, he remarked, doubts were emerging from the mouths of the witnesses. That brought into play a settled legal principle under which the benefit of the doubt goes to an accused. Even if a single circumstance created reasonable doubt in a prudent mind regarding guilt of an accused, observed the honourable justice, an accused is entitled to such benefit, not as a matter of grace and concession but of right, and that such benefits must be extended to the accused persons by courts without reservations. Few can quarrel with this long-honoured principle of justice. However, in his dissenting note, Justice Yahya Afridi approached the case from a different angle, that of a conspiracy, for which, he observed, direct evidence was seldom available. A conspiracy could be established by circumstantial evidence, he wrote, strict proof is not necessary. What is required by Article 23 of the Qanoon-i-Shahadat is that there should be “reasonable grounds” to believe that an accused and the person whose acts, statements or writings are sought to be given in evidence have conspired to commit an offence or an actionable wrong. In his opinion, in the present case, the motive of the accused to carry out the crime was not related to any private dispute with the victims, it clearly was the use of a threat designed to intimidate not only the Government of Pakistan, but also foreign governments and organisations to create a sense of fear and insecurity. Many familiar with the prevailing atmosphere at the time would be nodding in agreement.

The verdict is expected to be discussed and debated widely on its own merits as also its implications for relations with the US, which has been demanding restoration of death sentence initially awarded by an ATC. The US must respect the verdict of this country’s apex court. It should also serve as an instructive lesson for prosecutors who present shoddy evidence before courts and expect the same to be accepted, too.

Newspaper: Business Recorder (Editorial)

ISLAMABAD: Twelve years after the gruesome murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, his four convicted killers, who were found guilty of kidnapping and beheading him in Karachi in January 2002, are keeping their fingers crossed to get their sentences reversed when the Sindh High Court finally decides their appeals against convictions.

The 38-year-old reporter of the Wall Street Journal had travelled to Pakistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was abducted from Karachi on January 23, 2002, before being beheaded by militants while working on an investigative story about the alleged intelligence links of some Pakistani jehadi leaders. The Pearl killers, including Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed, a London School of Economics’ graduate-turned-jehadi, and his three accomplices, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adeel, were put on trial on April 22, 2002 by an Anti-Terrorism Court of Karachi. Three months later, Omar was handed down capital punishment while his three aides were sentenced to life in prison.

All the four alleged killers instantly approached the Sindh High Court, lodging appeals against the court verdict. However, the court has already consumed well over a decade to decide their appeals against convictions, even though the case has been adjourned for over 125 times since 2002. Although the last hearing was held last week, Rai Bashir, the defence lawyer of Omar Sheikh and his three aides, sees nothing unusual with the court handling of the case, saying that most of the appeals in the murder cases usually last for years and years.

He says his clients are keeping their fingers crossed to get their sentences overturned in the wake of the new evidence which proves that Daniel Pearl was actually killed by the 9/11 mastermind – former al-Qaeda No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Claiming responsibility for the Pearl murder in a confessional statement read before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal in the United States on March 10, 2007, the al-Qaeda leader who was arrested from Rawalpindi on March 1, 2003, claimed to have beheaded Pearl. “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Daniel Pearl”.

According to Rai Bashir, after studying the pattern of the veins on his hand, American investigators have also concluded that Khalid Sheikh wielded the blade that killed Pearl.

“I will base my argument on the fact that my clients did play a role in Pearl’s kidnapping, but the murder was committed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and that my clients were not even present at the crime scene”, said Rai Bashir.

The proceedings on the appeals of the convicted men are moving at a snail’s pace, with the trial court judge having already sent a reference to the Sindh High Court to confirm sentences awarded to the defendants, who have pleaded innocent in their appeals.

When the two-member division bench of the Sindh High Court took up the rusting files of appeals last week, they were displeased with the absence of the appellants’ lawyers including Rai Bashir. The bench issued a notice to the appellants to ensure presence of their lawyers by the next date of hearing. “Otherwise, the court would provide lawyers at the state’s expense to proceed and decide the matter,” so said the head of the bench, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah.

Asked about the inordinate delay in deciding the appeals of Pearl’s killers, well placed judicial officers in the Sindh High Court said the fact remains that despite convictions in the case, the trial was still under way because the scope of the case has been widened with the arrests of two more facilitators in the Pearl murder case – Hashim Shah who was arrested in 2010 and Qari Abdul Hayee who was detained in 2011.

These arrests coupled with the confessional statement of Khalid Sheikh and the 2011 findings of a fresh investigation into Pearl’s murder by none other than the Americans themselves are set to be exploited by the defence lawyers of Omar Sheikh and his co-accomplices to request the court for a retrial. Sponsored by the Georgetown University, Washington, the investigation report titled “The truth left behind: Inside kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl”, had claimed that the four jehadis convicted in the killing did help kidnap the journalist but did not kill him because they were not present at the crime scene.

The News

KARACHI: As the 12th death anniversary of American journalist Daniel Pearl draws near, the anti-terrorism appellate court moved only an inch ahead with the four convicts’ appeals against death and life imprisonment and confirmation of the sentences by the high court.

Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani decent, was awarded death sentence while the co-accused – Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Shaikh Adil – were given life imprisonment after the Anti-Terrorism Court found them guilty of beheading the foreign journalist in Karachi on January 23, 2002.

Pearl was abducted while investigating a story in Karachi about militants and the ‘Shoe Bomber’ Richard Reid.

The trial court judge had sent a reference to the high court for confirmation of sentences awarded to the defendants, who also exercised their right to appeal, and pleaded innocent.

A Lahore-based senior lawyer, Rai Bashir Ahmed, is representing Sheikh.

When the two judges took up the rusting files of appeals this week, they were irked with the absence of the appellants’ lawyers. The bench issued a notice to the appellants to ensure presence of their lawyers by the next date of hearing. “Otherwise, the court would provide lawyers at the state’s expense to proceed and decide the matter,” remarked head of the bench, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah.

The bench further ordered the prison superintendent, where the four appellants have been kept since their conviction, to ensure notices are served [to the convicts] personally and submit a progress report by the next date of hearing.

Trial still underway

Pearl’s is said to be the only murder case of journalists in which the culprits were arrested and sentenced. A report by the United States, however, later claimed that those convicted were not the actual killers, and rather the facilitators.

On the other hand, the trial is still under way as the scope has been widened with the arrest of another suspect, Hashim Shah, in 2010. Later, the authorities claimed to have arrested another facilitator, Qari Abdul Hayee.

Express Tribune

Qari Abdul Hayee, alias Asadullah, was allegedly involved in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. He was arrested in 2003 from Multan over his suspected involvement in planning and carrying out the kidnapping and murder of Pearl.

Hayee is also wanted in several other criminal cases, including helping his accomplice, Riaz Basra, in escaping from the Lahore sessions court in 1994.

Rangers shifted him to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

Targeted operations were initiated in sensitive areas of Karachi after two bomb blasts –in Quetta and Karachi – targeted the minority Shia community killing more than 190 people.

The LeJ had claimed responsibility for the Quetta blast and had threatened to exterminate all Shias.

Following the attack, LeJ leader Malik Ishaq and his son Malik Muhammad Usman were detained for a month. Several other members of the banned outfit were also arrested during separate raids.

Qari Abdul Hayee’s past

A black warrant had been issued in January, 1994 against Hayee for his involvement in the Shehr Sultan killings. Police investigations showed that Hayee had thrown grenades on a Shia mosque in Sher Sultan and resorted to indiscriminate fire along with his two accomplices in the attack. About half a dozen people died and Sher Sultan police registered a case against the accused.

At one point, his capture carried a bounty amounting to Rs2 million.

Hayee was arrested and had been awarded the death sentence by the Dera Ghazi Khan anti-terrorism court on six counts for killing six people in the Shehr Sultan attack.

Hayee was also a close aide of Riaz Basra, the founder of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and had reportedly met Taliban chief Mullah Omar once in Afghanistan during his years-long stay there.

The accused had helped LeJ in militant training in Afghanistan and allegedly trained hundreds of terrorists. He is considered a specialist in bomb manufacturing and had shifted from Afghanistan to Karachi after the fall of the Afghan Taliban in 2002.

After internal differences arose in the LeJ, Qari formed his own Qari Asad group. He was also Imam at Jamia Siddiq Akbar mosque, forming a strong base in Karachi.

He also formed a party Karawan Muhammad during the period of 1993-94.

Source: The Express Tribune