Daniel Pearl murder case: SHC overturns death penalty of main accused

KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) today (Thursday) overturned the death penalty of prime accused – Omar Saeed Sheikh – in kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl and also acquitted three accused persons.

SHC commuted the death sentence of the Omar Saeed Sheikh into seven years of prison. The other three suspects – Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib, and Sheikh Adil – were set free by the court.

Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha headed the two-judge bench of the high court and reserved the judgment last month on the appeals of the four persons against their conviction after hearing the arguments of the appellants and the state council.

Defense counsel – Rai Bashir and Khawaja Naveed Ahmed – submitted to the court that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt against the convicted.

The defense counsel argued that the witnesses of the prosecutions in the case were mostly policemen, and their testimonies could not be relied upon. The defense counsel further argued that there was no eyewitness to the crime and the prosecution relied upon very weak circumstantial evidence for conviction.

After hearing the arguments of all the parties related to the case, SHC bench acquitted three and reduced the sentence of the prime accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case.

Omer Sheikh – a British national – was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering the journalist, Daniel Pearl, by a court in 2002, and his three accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 500,000 each. 

Daniel Pearl was the South Asian bureau chief of American publication. He was kidnapped on January 23, 2002, in Karachi and later beheaded by his captors when their demands regarding his release were not met.