A Pakistani court has commuted the death sentences of the main person accused in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and acquitted three others accused in the matter, two lawyers said yesterday.
At least four people were convicted in connection with Pearl’s murder, including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding the murder.
He has been in jail for 18 years awaiting the outcome of an appeal.
“The court has commuted Omar’s death sentence to a seven-year sentence,” defense lawyer Khawaja Naveed said by telephone. “The murder charges were not proven, so he has been given seven years for the kidnapping.”
“Omar has already served 18 years, so his release orders will be issued sometime today. He will be out in a few days,” Naveed said.
A two-member bench of the High Court of Sindh issued the order in Karachi, Naveed said, adding that the three others, who had been serving life sentences in connection with the case, had been acquitted.
Pearl was investigating militants in Karachi after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US when he was kidnapped in January 2002.
Video emerged a few weeks later of his murder.
A Sindh prosecutor said he would consider appealing the decision.
“We will go through the court order once it is issued, we will probably file an appeal,” Sindh Provincial Prosecutor-General Faiz Shah said by telephone.
Sheikh, who was born in Britain and studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was arrested in India for his involvement in the kidnapping of Western tourists in 1994.
He was one of three men released from an Indian prison after militants hijacked an Indian airliner in late 1999 and flew it to Afghanistan, where the then-Taliban regime helped negotiate an exchange.
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