Pakistan is not handing over the prime suspect who was convicted and lateracquitted in a murder case of US journalist Daniel Pearl to Washington, thecountry’s foreign minister said on Sunday.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi was commenting on reports doing the rounds in thecapital Islamabad after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered toprosecute British-born accused Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in the US for his”horrific crimes against an American citizen” during a telephoneconversation with him on Friday.
“Reports regarding handing over of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to the US arebaseless,” local TV Geo News quoted the foreign minister as saying.
“I spoke to the US secretary of state, who expressed his concern over theSupreme Court judgement,” he said, referring to the acquittal of all thefour accused including Sheikh by the apex court on Thursday.
“I told him [Blinken] that our courts are independent,” he went on saying.
However, Qureshi added that the government has filed a review petitionagainst Shaikh’s acquittal, which will be heard on Monday by the samecourt. Pearl’s parents have also announced joining the review proceedings.
Pearl, a former South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, waskidnapped in January 2002 and killed after a month in the southern portcity of Karachi. His dismembered body was found on the northern outskirtsof Karachi four months after his disappearance.
In June 2002, an anti-terrorism court sentenced Sheikh to death and theother three to life imprisonment.
However, nearly 18 years after their conviction, first the Sindh High Courtin April last year, and then the Supreme Court acquitted all thedefendants, declaring that the prosecution had failed to prove the caseagainst them.
On Thursday, Blinken said in a statement that the US is “deeply concerned”by the Supreme Court decision to acquit those involved in Pearl’skidnapping and murder.
He noted that Sheikh was indicted in the US in 2002 for hostage-taking andconspiracy to commit hostage-taking, as well as the 1994 kidnapping ofanother US citizen in India.
The court’s decision is an affront to terrorism victims everywhere,including in Pakistan, he said, adding the US expects the Pakistanigovernment to expeditiously review its legal options to ensure justice isserved.
“We are also prepared to prosecute Sheikh in the United States for hishorrific crimes against an American citizen. We are committed to securingjustice for Daniel Pearl’s family and holding terrorists accountable,” hesaid.
In 2011, an investigative report by Georgetown University in the US claimedthat Sheikh and the other three accused had been wrongly convicted forPearl’s murder.
The investigation led by Pearl’s colleague Asra Nomani, who had accompaniedhim during his Pakistan visit, claimed that the actual man behind hisabduction and beheading was Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the self-proclaimedmastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US in 2001.
Mohammad, who was arrested by Pakistani security forces and handed over tothe US in 2003, is currently awaiting trial at the US base in GuantanamoBay, Cuba.