ISLAMABAD – The Sindh High Court on Thursday has directed to release Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib in Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case.
The Sindh High Court also ordered putting the names of accused Ahmed Omer Saeed Shaikh and others in the exit control list (ECL).
The accused have been in jail for the last 18 years and ordered the accused to appear as and when the court summons them.
Earlier Assistant Attorney General informed the court that the government have the authority to keep an accused in detention. The provincial home department held the accused under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) on September 28.
Earlier in April this year, the appeals were heard after 18 years and acquitted Sheikh, Saqib and Nasim. It commuted Sheikh’s death sentence to seven years and fined him Rs2 million. Sheikh has already spent 18 years in prison on death row, and his seven-year sentence for kidnapping was counted as time served.
The men were detained under Section 11 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
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Justice Amjad Ali Sehto of SHC expressed his anger over the mistakes in the notification, asking the Home Department to hire some literate persons.
‘Anyone had read what was written in the notification? Where it had been written that Omer Sheikh was a terrorist and associated with any banned outfit,’ the judge asked.
