Pearl murder suspect be removed from death cell: Court

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistan’s top court on Tuesday ordered the immediate removal of the prime suspect in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl from a death row prison, local media reported.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court ordered the jail authorities to transfer Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to a government rest house where his family could stay with him from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time (0300-1200GMT) daily, according to local broadcaster Geo News.

The court ruled the accused could not enjoy the internet and telephone facilities.

During the hearing, the court rejected the Attorney General's contention that the state has the right to keep the "dangerous terrorists" in custody, saying the accused had been in jail for the last 18 years, the broadcaster reported.

The court adjourned the hearing for an indefinite period.

Pearl, a former South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in January 2002 and killed after a month in the southern port city of Karachi.

His dismembered body was found on the northern outskirts of Karachi four months after his disappearance.

Pakistan's top court on Thursday ordered the release of all the four accused, including Sheikh.

In June 2002, an anti-terrorism court sentenced Sheikh to death and three others to life imprisonment.

However, nearly 18 years after their conviction, the Sindh High Court acquitted all the defendants, declaring that the prosecution had failed to prove the case against them.

In 2011, an investigative report by Georgetown University in the US claimed that Sheikh and the other three accused had been wrongly convicted of the murder of Pearl.

The investigation led by Pearl's colleague, Asra Nomani, who had accompanied him during his Pakistan visit claimed that the actual man behind his abduction and beheading was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Mohammed, who was arrested by Pakistani security forces and handed over to the US in 2003, is currently facing trial at the American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.