British Islamist goes on trial for Pearl murder
The trial of the British Islamist and three accomplices charged with the abduction and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl resumed today in Pakistan amid tight security.
Police snipers manned positions in guard towers and on top of buildings near Karachi Central Jail as the judge and prosecutors arrived.
The courtroom where Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, 28, and the three others face death if convicted remains closed to journalists and the public, but an official said the trial got underway at about 10.45am local time.
The entering of pleas and opening statements in the proceedings against Saeed, from Wanstead, east London, has been delayed twice since April 5 - once to allow the defence to receive evidence and later to allow time to complete legal steps for trying seven fugitive defendants in absentia.
On his way into the court, Saeed’s lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar said another delay was possible if the judge appoints lawyers for the fugitive defendants and decides they need time to prepare their case.
Chief prosecutor Raja Quereshi said he still expected pleas to be entered today.
For security reasons, the proceedings have been closed to the public and are being held in a makeshift courtroom inside the jail, where the four are held on charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism.
Some 70 extra officers have been added to guard the jail throughout the trial because of fears that the suspects’ supporters ‘‘might try to free them or even kill them,’’ said Amanullah Niazi, deputy superintendent of police at the Karachi jail.
Policemen with assault rifles guard Quereshi’s house day and night, and armed guards accompany prosecutors and the judge when they leave their residences.
Tight security is not something new in the southern port city with a history of targeted killings of government officials, but no chances are being taken in this closely-watched case.
On Friday, Judge Arshad Noor Khan was removed as the trial justice because he was present during a February 14 hearing where Saeed, a former public schoolboy, admitted his role in the kidnapping.
Saeed later recanted, but his lawyers argued that allowing Khan to preside would be prejudicial to the defence. Abdul Ghafoor Memon was appointed as a replacement.
The proceedings are being heard by the judge alone in Pakistan’s special anti-terrorism court, even though Saeed has demanded trial by an Islamic court, saying he does not recognise Pakistan’s ‘‘British’’ secular court system.
Pearl, the Wall Street Journal’s South Asia correspondent, disappeared on January 23 while researching links between Pakistani militants and Londoner Richard Reid, who was arrested in December on a transatlantic flight with explosives in his shoes.
Pearl was last known to be on his way to a Karachi restaurant to meet an Islamic militant believed to have been Saeed.
A few days later, e-mails sent by the previously unknown National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty announced his kidnapping and showed pictures of him in captivity.
A video-tape received by US diplomats in Pakistan on February 21 confirmed Pearl, 38, was dead. His body has not been found.
US investigators traced the e-mails to one of the defendants, Fahad Naseem, who in turn identified Saeed as the mastermind, police said. Salman Saqib and former policeman, Sheikh Mohammed Adeel, are also standing trial.
Saeed, a London School of Economics dropout, joined Islamic extremist movements after travelling to the Balkans about 10 years ago. After training in Afghanistan, he went to India, where he was arrested in 1994 for kidnapping Westerners.
He was freed in December 1999 along with two other Islamic militants in exchange for the passengers and crew of an Indian Airlines jet that was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
