Pakistan’s Supreme Court Orders Release of Man Convicted in Killing of WSJ Reporter Daniel Pearl

White Home press secretary

Jen Psaki

claimed the U.S. is outraged by the court’s choice, which she identified as an “affront to terrorism victims everywhere.” Ms. Psaki, who mentioned that Mr. Sheikh stays in detention, identified as on the Pakistani govt to expeditiously discover authorized choices, which include allowing Mr. Sheikh to be despatched to the U.S. for trial. “We are dedicated to securing justice for Daniel Pearl’s loved ones,” she claimed.

Performing Legal professional General Monty Wilkinson claimed in a statement that the Justice Section is ready to choose Mr. Sheikh into custody.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs declined to comment Thursday.

Pakistani authorities and Mr. Pearl’s loved ones had asked the Supreme Court docket to reinstate the convictions and a death sentence in opposition to Mr. Sheikh.

A lawyer for the Pakistan govt,

Faiz Shah,

claimed he was let down by Thursday’s outcome and claimed authorities would obstacle the verdict. Prosecutors can file what is acknowledged as a critique petition, asking the courtroom to reconsider its choice.

A person of the three judges who heard the circumstance dissented, which Pakistani attorneys claimed improved the probabilities that these kinds of a ask for could do well. But it is rare for a courtroom to reverse alone, the attorneys claimed.

“Today’s choice is a complete travesty of justice” that “puts in hazard journalists everywhere,” the Pearl loved ones claimed in a statement unveiled by their lawyer. “We urge the U.S. govt to choose all vital steps underneath the regulation to correct this injustice.”

Matt Murray,

the Journal’s editor in chief, claimed: “This is an infuriating and unjust choice. We’ll go on to aid endeavours to keep to account all those liable for the brutal murder of Danny.”

U.S. officers continue to be persuaded Mr. Sheikh performed a big position in Mr. Pearl’s abduction and killing. And Washington has pressed Pakistan to keep Mr. Sheikh in jail. How Islamabad handles U.S. demands will be an early check of relations with the new administration of President

Biden.

Mahmood Sheikh,

the lawyer for Omar Sheikh, claimed Pakistan’s legal guidelines and structure really do not permit another nation to now put his customer on trial. “Our judiciary has shown it is free of any impact, no make a difference how robust that person or nation might be,” he claimed.

Mr. Sheikh’s attorneys contended some of the evidence presented in opposition to him was flawed. Prosecutors had denied that was the circumstance.

At the time of his death, Mr. Pearl, then the Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, was reporting on militant networks in Pakistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He disappeared in the southern town of Karachi in January 2002. He was killed times later on, beheaded in an execution that was videotaped and unveiled on the world-wide-web.

The killing put force on Pakistan, which had just joined as a husband or wife with the U.S. in its battle in opposition to terrorism, to fix the circumstance. The nation investigated with the help of the U.S.’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Fewer than 6 months immediately after the killing, Mr. Sheikh was convicted of kidnapping for ransom, terrorism and murder, and he was sentenced to death. A few other alleged accomplices ended up specified everyday living in jail. The very same lower courtroom that overturned Mr. Sheikh’s convictions also overturned all those of the other three males. The Supreme Court docket ruled Thursday that they, far too, should really be freed.

The Pearl loved ones was not included in the unique 2002 trial, but immediately after a lower courtroom in Karachi in April 2020 ruled that Mr. Sheikh should really be unveiled, the loved ones, as perfectly as the Pakistani authorities, took an attraction to the Supreme Court docket.

The lower courtroom had located that Mr. Sheikh was still responsible of kidnapping—a lesser criminal offense than kidnapping for ransom—but the time he had by now put in in jail was much more than the utmost penalty.

The Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., a device of

News Corp,

contributed to the authorized service fees for the family’s attraction.

Mr. Sheikh dropped out of college or university in London in the early nineties and flew to Pakistan, where he allegedly joined a jihadist team. That team despatched him to India, where he was imprisoned in 1994 in link with the kidnapping of Western vacationers. He was freed 5 years later on immediately after the hijackers of an Indian plane demanded that he and other militants be unveiled.

Mr. Sheikh’s father, Saeed Ahmed Sheikh, who attended the proceedings at the Supreme Court docket, which ongoing for months, claimed he was relieved. He claimed he didn’t but know where his son would dwell. The family’s principal property is in the U.K.

“It has been agony, complete agony. This has devastated the loved ones, devastated his job,” claimed Mr. Sheikh, the father, speaking at the courtroom just immediately after the verdict. “We now have to decide on up the items and get started afresh.”

U.S. officers feel that the kidnapping of Mr. Pearl before long drew the notice of al Qaeda’s functions chief,

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,

a Pakistani considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Four years later on, immediately after currently being subjected consistently to waterboarding—an interrogation strategy identified as torture by human-rights groups and now prohibited by the U.S. government—he appeared ahead of a military tribunal at the foundation and confessed to the murder of Mr. Pearl.

The alleged position of Mr. Mohammed hasn’t figured in the circumstances ahead of the Pakistani courts, nor has he been charged with the criminal offense in U.S. custody, where he stays.

—William Mauldin contributed to this posting.

Publish to Saeed Shah at [email protected]