Pakistan’s Top Court to Weigh Reinstating Death Sentence on Accused Killer of WSJ Reporter

The government of Pakistan and the Pearl loved ones had individually petitioned the Supreme Court docket to listen to an attractiveness towards a reduce-court docket conclusion in April to overturn the demise sentence handed down in 2002 to Mr. Sheikh.

That ruling made Mr. Sheikh and three accomplices whose convictions ended up overturned suitable for launch. So much, the government has utilised crisis powers to keep on detaining them.

It is unclear when the genuine appeals will now be heard, and it could just take months or even a long time, legal professionals explained. The Supreme Court docket will make your mind up subsequent week no matter whether Mr. Sheikh will keep on to be imprisoned pending the consequence of individuals attractiveness proceedings. His attorney wasn’t present in the court docket to argue on his behalf, citing well being challenges.

Faisal Siddiqi, a attorney for the Pearl loved ones, called the listening to a finish good results.

“There is really considerable proof towards all the accused,” he explained.

The Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, is contributing to the authorized fees for the family’s attractiveness.

Mr. Sheikh and his three alleged accomplices deny involvement in the abduction and killing of the journalist, who disappeared from the southern city of Karachi in January 2002. He was killed days later on, and a movie of his beheading surfaced on the world wide web.

Mr. Sheikh’s attorney, Mahmood Sheikh, speaking by cellular phone, called the court’s listening to of arguments for the attractiveness with no the accused’s lawyer present “most unconventional.”

Mahmood Sheikh explained he had been encouraged by his health care provider to rest in bed soon after suffering a coronary heart assault earlier this month. In his prepared submission to the court docket, the attorney challenged the proof towards his client as unreliable or fabricated. The attorney explained that subsequent week he would argue prior to the court docket that Omar Sheikh really should be freed when the attractiveness is heard.

Mr. Pearl was the Journal’s bureau main for South Asia. He was reporting on extremist groups in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when he went lacking.

In the court docket listening to, the government’s attorney, Farooq Naek, explained that Mr. Sheikh belonged to an intercontinental terrorist group and could flee the place if released from jail.

Mr. Sheikh dropped out of university in London in the early nineties and flew to Pakistan, the place he joined a jihadist group. That group sent him to India, the place he assisted kidnap some Western tourists, but was caught and jailed there in 1994. He was freed soon after the hijackers of an Indian aircraft demanded that he and other militants be released.

At his demo in 2002, prosecutors alleged that he achieved Mr. Pearl in the northern city of Rawalpindi and available to help him with a tale he was operating on, and then lured him to Karachi, the place he was kidnapped. Mr. Sheikh was convicted of kidnapping for ransom, murder and terrorism.

Nonetheless, a court docket in Karachi in April overturned the murder and terrorism convictions and downgraded the 3rd conviction to the less-critical crime of basic kidnapping. That intended his demise sentence was downgraded to 7 a long time in jail. As he had previously served eighteen a long time in jail, he was suitable for launch. His accomplices ended up exonerated in that ruling.

Ahead of Monday’s listening to, Judea Pearl, the father of the murdered journalist, had explained that if Omar Sheikh ended up freed, it would ship a concept of impunity to terrorists around the planet.

Generate to Saeed Shah at [email protected]