In a shocking outcome, Pakistan Supreme Court has set free terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh in the 2002 beheading of American Journalist Daniel Pearl. Terrorist Omar Shaikh had received a death sentence earlier that was overturned in April 2020 by Sindh High Court.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of dreaded terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh while dismissing an appeal against the overturning of his conviction for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl. Omar is one of the three terrorists freed by India in 1999 in exchange for passengers of a hijacked airliner.

 

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam dismissed the Sindh government’s appeal against the Sindh high court’s ruling to overturn Saeed’s conviction for the 2002 beheading of Pearl and directed authorities to release him.

 

Sheikh had denied his involvement in the crime for the past 18 years. A letter written by him in 2019 said that he had limited involvement in Pearl’s killing. The letter was submitted to the Paki Supreme Court about a fortnight ago.

 

 

In an order issued on April 2, 2020, the Sindh high court had overturned Sheikh’s conviction for killing Pearl, who was then the South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal. The high court had also acquitted three other terrorists, Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib who were sentenced to life imprisonment by an anti-terrorism court in Karachi.

 

The Sindh government and Pearl’s parents then filed separate appeals against HC’s order in the Paki Supreme Court and Sheikh was held in prison as the appeals were heard.

 

Daniel Pearl, 38, was South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal when he was abducted in Karachi in January 2002 while researching links between terrorists in Pakistan and Richard C Reid, known as the “shoe bomber” for trying to detonate a bomb while on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001. Pearl was later murdered by his captors in Karachi.