In a shocking verdict, the Pakistan court has ordered the immediate release of terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who had killed US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan. While declaring Omar’s connection with the abduction and murder of Daniel as ‘null and void’, the Pakistan court ordered his release along with other terrorists Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib, and Sheikh Adil, as per WSJ report.
The Karachi Court’s release order overturns a decision by Pakistan’s top court that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the key suspect in Pearl’s slaying, should remain in custody, his lawyer said.
While Sheikh was sentenced to death, three terrorists Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib, and Sheikh Adil who aided him in the crime were sentenced to life in prison for their role in Pearl’s death. However, in April, they were exonerated by the Sindh High Court and an appeal against their acquittal is being heard in the Supreme Court.
Daniel Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the links between ISI and al-Qaeda. Pearl was working as the South Asia Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, based in Mumbai, India. He was kidnapped when he went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between British citizen Richard Reid (known as the “shoe bomber”) and Al-Qaeda.
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl’s abduction and murder in 2002 but his conviction was overturned by a Pakistani court in the summer of 2020.
In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a member of Al-Qaeda, claimed that he had personally beheaded Pearl.
Aayush Pal 
Shobhil Shrivastava