Man Charged With Killing Journalist Daniel Pearl Ordered Released By Pakistan Court

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Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was killed by militants in Pakistan in 2002.

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The man charged with the kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl arrives at a Karachi, Pakistan, court in 2002. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had his murder conviction overturned this year and was ordered released.

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Zia Mazhar/AP

Middle East
Pakistani Court Overturns Murder Conviction In Killing Of Journalist Daniel Pearl

«All of Danny’s family and friends were blindsided, said Asra Nomani, a family friend of the Pearls. She spoke to NPR after Sheikh’s conviction was overturned.

In a statement issued Thursday on Twitter, the U.S. State Department said it was «deeply concerned about the court’s decision «to release multiple terrorists responsible for the murder of Daniel Pearl.

«We continue to stand with the Pearl family through this extremely difficult process, the statement said.

(1/3)We are deeply concerned by the reports of the December 24 ruling of Sindh High Court to release multiple terrorists responsible for the murder of Daniel Pearl. We have been assured that the accused have not been released at this time.

— State_SCA (@State_SCA) December 24, 2020

At the time of his death, Pearl was a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He had been reporting on the connections between Pakistani religious militants and the so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid, when he went missing in January 2002. Sheikh was convicted of masterminding Pearl’s kidnapping by luring him to a meeting in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and commercial capital.

The manner of Pearl’s death was a portent of how Islamist extremists would use cinematic violence against innocents in subsequent years. A videotape of Pearl answering his captors’ questions, followed by his beheading, was sent to the U.S. Consulate General in Karachi and posted on the Internet. It identified Pearl as a Jew and was explicitly anti-Semitic.

In 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, told a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he had decapitated Pearl.

The Pakistani government and Pearl’s family are separately appealing the decision to release Sheikh in the country’s Supreme Court. The next hearing is expected on January 5.

In the order, the Sindh High Court said Sheikh and the three other men would not be allowed to leave the country until the court had ruled on the case. But the court also directed that none of the men «be placed under preventative detention, it wrote, «without the prior permission of the court.