| Home again, home again jiggity jig! And thus the ISIS, pretending to be the elected government of Pakistan, protects their lad from the wrath of the stupid Americans. |
Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh, who has been on death row for 18 years, will be under guard and will not be allowed to leave the safe house, but he will be able to have his wife and children visit him.
"It is not complete freedom. It is a step toward freedom," said Sheikh’s father, Ahmad Saeed Sheikh, who attended the hearing.
The Pakistain government has been scrambling to keep Sheikh in jail since a Supreme Court order last Thursday upheld his acquittal in the death of Pearl, triggering outrage by Pearl’s family and the US administration.
In a final effort to overturn the acquittal, Pakistain’s government as well as the Pearl family filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, asking it to review the decision to exonerate Sheikh of Pearl’s murder. The family’s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi, however, said such a review had a slim chance of success because the same Supreme Court judges who ordered Sheikh’s acquittal sit on the review panel.
The US government has said that it would seek Sheikh’s extradition if his acquittal is upheld. Sheikh has been indicted in the United States on Pearl’s murder as well as in a 1994 kidnapping of an American citizen in Indian-ruled sector of the divided region of Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it
Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
. The American was eventually freed.
The order sending Sheikh to a safe house would seem to be a concession to the federal government, as well as the government of southern Sindh province where 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...
is the capital. The Sindh government has refused successive orders to release Sheikh, even courting contempt charges from lower courts.
In the government-run safe house, Sheikh will be under a 24-hour guard — often military personnel — and will not be allowed to leave the house. Locations of such safe houses are usually kept secret; Pakistain’s security establishment has several such facilities across the country.
Pearl disappeared on Jan. 23, 2002, in the port city of Karachi where he was investigating links between Pak holy warrior groups and Richard C. Reid, dubbed the "shoe bomber" after his attempt to blow up a flight from Gay Paree to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Pearl’s body was discovered in a shallow grave soon after a video of his beheading was delivered to the US Consulate in Karachi.
The Pentagon in 2007 released a transcript in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo..., the alleged criminal mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, said he had killed Pearl.
"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl," the transcript quoted Mohammed as saying. Mohammad first disclosed his role while he was held in CIA custody and subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture. He remains in the US prison in Guantanamo Bay and has never been charged with the journalist’s death.
Sheikh had long denied any involvement in Pearl’s death, but Pakistain’s Supreme Court last month heard that he acknowledged writing a letter in 2019 admitting a minor role — raising hopes for some that he might remain behind bars.
In a series of tweets over the weekend, Pearl’s family urged followers to "call your politicians in Pakistain, in the US, the world to support Danny’s parents," to keep Sheikh behind bars.
Last week’s ruling that exonerated Sheikh also exonerated another three men accused in Pearl’s murder who had been serving life sentences. It wasn’t clear whether they would be freed or also moved to a safe house.
Siddiqi, the Pearl family lawyer, said the original murder trial back in 2002 charged all four as one, which complicated the case and allowed the court to free all if there was doubt about the guilt of even one of the suspects.
Pakistan denies handing over Pearl murder suspect to US
Pakistain is not handing over the prime suspect who was convicted and later acquitted in a murder case of US journalist Daniel Pearl to Washington, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood
WormtongueQureshi
...a Pak political shape-changer. He is undistinguished except for his habit of periodically needing to have his lips reattached...said on Sunday.
He was commenting on reports doing rounds in Islamabad after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered to prosecute British-born accused Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in the US for his "horrific crimes against an American citizen" during a telephone conversation with him on Friday.
"Reports regarding handing over of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to the US are baseless," a private TV channel cited the foreign minister as saying. "I spoke to the US secretary of state, who expressed his concern over the Supreme Court judgement," he said while referring to the acquittal of all four accused, including Sheikh by the apex court on Thursday. "I told him [Blinken] that our courts are independent," he went on saying.
However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
Qureshi added that the government has filed a review petition against Sheikh’s acquittal, which will be heard on Monday by the same court. Pearl’s parents have also announced joining the review proceedings.