Pearl case witness did not endorse conspiracy: SC

The counsel for the Sindh government on Wednesday resumed his arguments before an apex court bench that is hearing appeals against the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) order in Denial Pearl murder case.

The SHC on April 2 commuted the death sentence of British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, convicted for kidnapping and murdering US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 to seven years.

The high court bench had also acquitted three others who were serving life terms in the case, almost two decades after they were found guilty by a trial court.

The Sindh government as well as Pearl’s family had later challenged the verdict and a three-judge Supreme Court bench opened the appeal on Tuesday.

During the hearing on Wednesday, the SC bench noted that a key prosecution witness – a taxi driver who had last seen Pearl along with accused Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh – had not accepted that the plan to kill the US journalist was made in his presence.

Sindh government’s lawyer Farooq H Naek conceded that it is an established fact that the murder plan was not made in that witness’s presence. Justice Sardar Tariq said the charge-sheet, however, claimed that murder was planned.

During the argument, Naek also read out the statement of a journalist Asif Mehmood Farooqi, another persecution witness who at the time of the crime was associated with a Japanese news agency and who had arranged a meeting between Pearl and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

In the statement, Farooqi had said he did not know whether or not Daniel Pearl was working for US spy agency CIA or Israeli spy agency Mossad. He also did not know whether Pearl had come to Pakistan to gather information with regard to Dawood Ibrahim, the kingpin of Indian underworld.

Justice Sardar Tariq said if the meeting that took place in Rawalpindi was a conspiracy then Asif Mehmood Farooqi should also have been nominated as an accused. Naek said Sheikh had introduced himself to Farooqi as a Muhammad Bashir and Farooqi did not know his true identity.

The court later adjourned hearing of the case till Thursday (today). Naek will continue his arguments.

Pearl was South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal when he was abducted in Karachi in January 2002 while researching a story about militants. A graphic video showing his decapitation was delivered to the US consulate nearly a month later.