The Sindh home department’s indecision has been delaying for more than four months the proceedings of the trial of an accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case. Hashim Qadir alias Arif was declared an absconder along with other co-accused at the arraignment of Omer Saeed Sheikh, who masterminded the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter and three others in 2002. Qadir, according to the investigators of the case, was the man who had set up a meeting between Omer Sheikh and Daniel Pearl at the Akbar International Hotel in Rawalpindi. Intelligence officials said Qadir was one of seven militants still being sought in connection with Pearl’s murder.Allegedly an activist of the Harkatul Mujahideen, Qadir was arrested in Gujranwala on July 24, 2005. He was brought to Karachi and after the completion of the remand proceedings his case was marked for trial to Anti Terrorism Court-IV (ATC-IV) Karachi headed by Judge Feroz Mehmood Bhatti. However, Qadir’s trial was stalled after the provincial home department informed the court that a notification was in the pipeline to declare him a dangerous and hardened criminal whose trial should be held inside jail. For four months, the state attorney has been informing the court that the provincial home department is planning to issue a notification to hold Qadir’s trial inside Central Prison Karachi. The case was again fixed for hearing on Saturday before ATC-IV. The state counsel once again sought an adjournment on the grounds that the notification for the jail trial of the accused has not yet been issued.
Qadir, first considered the main suspect in the case, was presumed dead after his family told the police that he was killed while fighting against US troops in Afghanistan. Pearl, 38, was kidnapped in January 2002 while researching a report on Islamist militants. He was later found beheaded. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born militant, was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding the crime while three associates were given life in prison. Their appeals against the convictions are still pending. Intelligence officials said Qadir was found on a bus about to depart for Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir, after being traced via the satellite telephone he was carrying.
A police investigator in Karachi said Qadir had acted as a co-ordinator between Omar and Amjad Hussain Farooqi, one of the main suspects in Pearl’s murder described by the authorities as a key link between local militants and al Qaeda. Farooqi was shot and killed by security forces in Nawabshah in September 2004. In November, police shot dead Asim Ghafoor, another militant wanted for Pearl’s abduction and murder, in a clash in Karachi, where Pearl was murdered. Pearl’s widow, Mariane, in her book about her husband’s murder, A Mighty Heart, said that Qadir worked as a spokesman for the Harkatul Mujahideen (Movement for Holy Warriors), a militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
Intelligence officials have said that Qadir also has links to the Jaish-e-Mohammad, another militant group linked to al Qaeda and blamed for a string of attacks in Pakistan, including attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf. Qadir’s arrest came during a crackdown on militants after the 7/7 London bombings.