Pearl case takes new turn

Although the trial for the kidnap and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was deferred again yesterday, it took an exciting new turn after a court in Karachi issued a contempt notice to Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf for attempting to influence the proceedings, and ordered the state to argue next week whether the charge was maintainable.

Since the trial itself was in camera, media representatives were forced to wait for hours in scorching heat and had to remain content with spoon-feeding from counsels of the two sides.

They used almost every recognised means to persuade and even cajole the administration to let them attend the proceedings, but when they found that it was all in vain, they finally decided to exert themselves and filed for contempt against the administration's decision to deny them their basic right of witnessing an important event.

Last week, they staged a sit-in outside the prison gates and agreed to base their reports on briefings from the lawyers only after assurances were given that their request to attend the court would be considered.

They even filled a form of the Sindh home department in the hope of getting their grievances redressed, but the usual practice of keeping the newspaper readers in the dark was preferred.

A doctored version was supplied to them for the third successive week yesterday, but journalists felt a bit relieved by the attitude of the judge who asked the administration to explain the rationale behind its decision to hold the trial behind closed doors.

Both these contempt cases will be heard by the judge on April 16, but a more important petition as to whether an anti-terrorist court was competent to hear the case will come up before a division bench of the Sindh High Court on the same date.

A petition has been filed by Sheikh Omar Ahmed Saeed, who, along with three others, was to be formally indicted yesterday for kidnapping and murdering the American journalist, but will now have to wait till April 22 for that to happen.

The Pakistani legal system has often been termed too complicated for justice to be speedier. Omar again hammered the point that the case should be heard by an Islamic court as he had no faith in the British or the Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence, lawyer Khwaja Naveed told local and the foreign media after attending the court in defence of two others – Fahd Naseem, and former police constable Adil Sheikh.

He has taken that plea earlier also when he was produced before the administrative judge of the Sindh High court, Justice Shabbir Ahmad, last month. While Adil has supplied the photograph of Pearl in captivity for e-mailing to media organisations in Pakistan, Fahd has complied with instructions as a cyber cafe employee.

"I don't accept British law. I should be tried in a Shariah court," Omar was quoted as saying.