Pakistan’s top court halts release of suspects in Daniel Pearl murder case

KARACHI – The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday halted the release of suspects in the murder case of American journalist Daniel Pearl for 24 hours, according to local media.

Omar Sheikh, and others were expected to be released on Tuesday (tomorrow).

Instructing the Sindh government to suspend release orders of Sheikh and others, the apex court also restricted the Sindh government from issuing any extension in the detention orders of the accused.

Daniel Pearl had disappeared on January 23, 2002 in Karachi. A videotape received by US diplomats in February 2002 confirmed that the 38-year-old journalist was dead. Authorities later arrested Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a former student at the London School of Economics, and three others who were convicted in July 2002. But in April, the Sindh High Court overturned the murder conviction of Saeed, a British Pakistani national, though it found him guilty of kidnapping Pearl and sentenced him to seven years.

On January 28, a three-judge Supreme Court bench acquitted Sheikh by extending the benefit of the doubt to him and ordered his release. The Supreme Court issued the verdict on a petition filed by the Sindh government and Pearl's parents against a Sindh High Court (SHC) order for Sheikh's acquittal and immediate release.

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The SHC had also acquitted three other men namely Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib, who had been earlier sentenced to life imprisonment by an Anti-Terrorism Court in Karachi.