Pakistan Decides To Free UK Citizen Indicted For Murder Of US Reporter In 2002 - Reports

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th December, 2020) A court in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on Thursday ruled the release of a UK national accused of organizing kidnapping and murder of a US journalist for the Wall Street Journal, the media outlet has reported, citing a lawyer.

Wall Street Journal's South Asia Bureau Chief� Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beaheaded by Islamist militants in Karachi in 2002, when he was covering terrorist networks in Pakistan.

Omar Sheikh, a UK citizen of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by the same court in 2002 for masterminding Pearl's abduction and murder. However, the sentence was overturned in April 2020, when the court lifted all charges except for the kidnapping, which is worth seven-year imprisonment in Pakistan.

Given Sheikh has been in jail for 18 years, judges on Thursday ordered his release. He is expected to be freed later this week, along with three other accused of complicity in the crime.

Three other indicted for the complicity to the journalist's kidnapping and murder, who were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 trial, also had their convictions overturned in April. Despite this, the Pakistani authorities used emergency detention powers to keep the four in jail. On Thursday, the court ruled that the use of these powers was unjustified.

The media outlet has also specified that the national government and the family of the murdered reporter have separately appealed the judges' April ruling on the case to the country's Supreme Court.