Omar pleads not guilty

A Pakistani court yesterday began the trial of Jaish-e-Mohammed activist Sheikh Omar Ahmed Saeed and three other men for the murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped in Karachi in January.

They were charged with kidapping for ransom, murder and conspiracy under Sections 365,302 and 120 of the Pakistan penal law, prescribing imprisonment for life or death by hanging.

Pearl, pursuing a story on possible connections between an American shoe-bomber and Pakistani clerics, went missing on January 23, and was shown to have been killed in a video supplied by his captors to the U.S. embassy in Washington in February.

Omar and his three accomplices – Fahd Naseem, Salman Saquib and Sheikh Adil – pleaded not guilty when the anti-terrorist court judge commenced proceedings behind closed doors.

Judge Arshad Noor Khan, who had presided over the court earlier, was changed by the Sindh High Court on a demand from Omar for being witness to a statement made by the principal accused that he had kidnapped Pearl in Karachi.

While Omar had confessed to the kidnapping of the American journalist, Fahd and Salman, as cybercafe employees, were involved in sending e-mails to newspapers in Pakistan about Pearl.

Adil, a former police constable, had been found to have given them the photograph showing Pearl in captivity with a gun to his head.

Over three dozen reporters and photographers from the print and electronic media were made to wait for five hours in the scorching heat as the contempt petition they had filed against the government decision to deny them the right to be present in the courtroom had to be put off till tomorrow.

Briefing newsmen later, Khwaja Naveed, counsel for Salman and Adil, said Omar had demanded that he be tried under the Shariah law instead of the Ango-Saxon system, in vogue in Pakistan since 1947.

The court recorded the objection, but went ahead with the case. It also over-ruled objections from Naveed and another defence counsel Rai Bashir about the case being malafide against Saquib and Fahd.

The lawyers said their clients were merely involved in transmitting e-mails and as such could not be indicted for kidnapping or murder.

They also told the court that the prosecution had not yet produced the video about Pearl's murder. Unless that was done, it would be difficult for them to believe the police version of the case.

Naveed said the court recorded the statement of prosecution witness number 1, a taxi driver Nasir Abbas, who had driven Pearl to a restaurant in Karachi on January 23 where he was met by Omar and was whisked away to an unknown place.

The judge framed the charges against all four, telling them that they had been responsible for kidnapping the journalist, demanding ransom for his release on January 27, and finally killing him on January 30.

It also declared seven others involved in the crime as absconders.