 [IsraelTimes] Biden administration calls on Pak government to allow US to try Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, convicted of planning abduction and beheading of Jewish journalist.
The US said on Thursday it was prepared to prosecute the man acquitted in Pakistain of murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Pakistain’s Supreme Court upheld the acquittal and ordered the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
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...described at length here yesterday, so I won’t bore you with it again today...
"The court’s decision is an affront to terrorism victims everywhere, including in Pakistain," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. "We expect the Pak government to expeditiously review its legal options to ensure justice is served."
"We are also prepared to prosecute Sheikh in the United States for his horrific crimes against an American citizen. We are committed to securing justice for Daniel Pearl’s family and holding forces of Evil accountable," the statement said.
The statement noted that Sheikh had been indicted for the kidnapping of a US citizen in India in 1994.
That’d be when our villain was caught in Kashmir with two emirs of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen while kidnapping Western tourists for Pakistan’s ISI. Then in 1999 they were traded for the passengers and crew of an Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Afghanistan, so that’s ok. Earlier Thursday, White House chief spokeswoman Jen Psaki
...a valley girl who woke up one morning and found she was spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State under Obama...
told news hounds the Biden administration was "outraged by the Pak Supreme Court’s decision." The statement underscored the uneasy alliance between Washington and Islamabad, which has fractured many times over Islamist militancy.
Pearl was the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. His killing — which was filmed — caused international shock and outrage.
"The court has come out to say that there is no offense that [Sheikh] has committed in this case," Mahmood Sheikh, who represented the accused, told AFP.
A court order said that Sheikh along with three accomplices connected to the case should "be released forthwith," though it was not clear when that would happen.
Pearl was researching a story about Islamist gunnies when he was kidnapped in the southern port megacity of Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
in Sindh province in January 2002.
Nearly a month later, after a string of ransom demands, a graphic video showing his decapitation was given to officials.
Sheikh, a British-born jihadist who once studied at the London School of Economics and had been involved in previous kidnappings of foreigners, was arrested days after Pearl’s abduction.
He was later sentenced to death by hanging after telling a Karachi court that Pearl had already been killed days before the gruesome video of the journalist’s beheading had been released.
The ruling follows an outcry last year when a lower court acquitted the 47-year-old Sheikh of murder and reduced his conviction to a lesser charge of kidnapping — overturning his death sentence
 ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
and ordering him freed after almost two decades in prison.
That sparked a series of petitions, including from Pearl’s family, but the Supreme Court rejected them in the split decision Thursday, upholding the acquittal.
For years Sheikh had denied personally killing Pearl, but the top court heard earlier this week that he had admitted in a handwritten letter from 2019 that was sent to a provincial court to having had a "minor role."
Lawyers for Pearl’s family have argued that Sheikh played a crucial role in organizing the abduction and detention of the journalist, before ordering his captors to kill him.
Defense lawyers, however, say he was a scapegoat and sentenced on insufficient evidence.
Sheikh and the three other men have been held under emergency orders by the Sindh provincial government, which says they are a danger to the public.
Late Thursday the Sindh government said it would file a review petition against the Supreme Court verdict.
It was not clear how long that might take, but Pakistain’s attorney general said in a statement that the federal government "is extending full support" to the provincial government in the matter.
US ’READY TO TAKE CUSTODY’
Last month the then-US acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said Washington "stands ready to take custody of Omar Sheikh to stand trial here."
Psaki on Thursday said the United States recognizes "past Pak actions to try to hold Mr Pearl’s murderers accountable and we do note that as of right now Omar Sheikh remains in detention."
"We call on the Pak government to expeditiously review its legal options, including allowing the United States to prosecute Sheikh for the brutal murder of an American citizen and journalist."
In January 2011, following an investigation into the killing, a report released by the Pearl Project at Georgetown University made chilling revelations, claiming that the wrong men were convicted for Pearl’s murder.
The investigation claimed the news hound was murdered by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged criminal mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The report also provided granular details about Sheikh’s alleged role in orchestrating the kidnapping of Pearl. 
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