The Sindh government challenged the Sindh High Court (SHC) verdict in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
In its April 2 order, the SHC had overturned the conviction of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh for killing the South Asia Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal. The SHC had also acquitted three other accused namely Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib, who had been earlier sentenced to life imprisonment by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Karachi.
Daniel Pearl, 38, was doing research on religious extremism in Karachi when he was abducted in January 2002. A graphic video showing his decapitation was delivered to the US consulate a month later. Subsequently Omar Sheikh was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to death by the trial court.
Sindh Prosecutor General Dr Fiaz Shah moved the appeal before the top court on the grounds that the ‘last seen evidence’, ‘impersonation and ‘identification parade’ was proved against the accused persons and maintained concurrently by the trial court.
Moreover, the appeal pointed out that the video showing the committing of murder of the WSJ reporter had been verified by a public official (an expert from PTV) and was never challenged.
