Pakistani court, witnesses receive threats during Daniel Pearl murder case trial: Lawyer tells SC

The Pakistani trial court that heard American journalist Daniel Pearl's murder case and its witnesses had received threats, legal counsel of the journalist's parents told the country's Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The Pakist trial court that heard American journalist Del Pearl's murder case and its witnesses had received threats, legal counsel of the journalist's parents told the country's Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The three-judge bench headed by Supreme Court Justice Musheer Alam was hearing an appeal filed last year by the Sindh government and Pearl's Parent against a Sindh High Court's decision to acquit the main suspect in the case terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh and three others.

During today's hearing, the legal counsel of Pearl's parents, Faisal Siddiqui, said that the case was shifted from Karachi to Hyderabad due to threats.

Siddiqui also argued that terrorism cases were filed on the basis of "confessional statements". He urged the court to "create a balance between the basic rights of the petitioner and the accused".

Omar's legal representative Mehmood Sheikh, in his arguments, labelled the case as "false and a result of pressure". He said that the United States had sent Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to assist the murder investigation and added: "No country sends its investigative institutions after its ordinary citizens," he said.

In December last year, the Sindh High Court directed to release terrorist Sheikh, Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saqib.

According to Daily Pakistan, the Sindh High Court also ordered putting the names of accused Ahmed Omer Saeed Shaikh and others in the exit control list (ECL).

The accused have been in jail for the last 18 years and ordered the accused to appear as and when the court summons them.

In 2002, Pearl, the 38-year-old journalist of The Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story of terror groups' links to Al Qaeda.

The United States expressed deep concerns over the Sindh High Court ruling to release multiple terrorists responsible for the murder of Del Pearl.

( With inputs from ANI )