Daniel Pearl case: SHC seeks report from home dept on detention of accused

(Karachi) The Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered the provincial home department to submit a comprehensive report on a petition challenging the detention of accused in American Journalist Daniel Pearl's murder despite their acquittal, local media has reported.

The court also sought details of charges against the accused.

During hearing of the case, the petitioner’s lawyer told the court that the government issued a notification regarding the detention of the accused after their acquittal under the maintenance of public order (MPO) without giving any plausible reason.

The advocate general stated that the accused were kept in detention as they remained in contact with proscribed outfits.

At this, the judge remarked that the court was not talking about the past but present. The advocate general (AG) Sindh sought three days’ time to prepare his arguments.

After the arguments, the hearing was adjourned till November 26.

Earlier, the Supreme Court (SC) accepted the appeals of Sindh government for hearing against the acquittal of convicts in Daniel Pearl murder case.

The court said that the SHC's decision of overturning the conviction in Daniel Pearl murder case could not be cancelled over hypothetical arguments.

The top court instructed the Sindh government counsel to present the case facts in a sequence adding that the high court decision could not be overturned over hypotheses.

American journalist Daniel Pearl disappeared on January 23, 2002 in Karachi. A videotape received by U.S. 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, a 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.