Daniel Pearl: Pakistan’s highest court frees men convicted of kidnapping and murdering American journalists

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Pearl was working as head of the Wall Street Journal’s South Asian bureau in 2002 when he was kidnapped in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, while reporting on Richard Reid, the British terrorist known as the ‘shoe-bomber’.

The high-profile kidnapping drew international attention amid growing concerns about the threat of radical Islamic terrorism.

Attackers later filmed Pearl’s beheading and sent it to US officials. It was one of the first propaganda videos about hostages made by extremists and helped inspire other terror groups to film gruesome and blatant acts of violence.

Four men were arrested and convicted in 2002 for the kidnapping and murder of Pearl. One of them, the British Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was sentenced to death.

In April last year, a supreme court in Sindh province, where Karachi is located, overturned the convictions of three of the four men and sentenced Sheikh’s sentenced to seven years in prison, meaning he was eligible for his release on time.
The court said the men had suffered ‘irreparable harm and extreme prejudice’ after spending 18 years behind bars, and in December ordered the release of all four, but both the Pearl family and Pakistani authorities appealed to it. The country’s Supreme Court on Thursday sentenced them.

According to a statement by lawyer Faisal Siddique Said, the family was “in complete shock” at the majority decision, which they described as a “complete mockery of justice” that would endanger journalists and the people of Pakistan.

The statement urged the US government to “take all necessary legal measures to correct this injustice,” adding that the family hoped Pakistani authorities would also act.

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