Daniel Pearl murder case: Pak SC to hear plea against release of accused on Feb 1

New Delhi: The Pakistan Supreme Court (SC) has fixed the Sindh government’s plea for hearing on Monday (February 1) against the release of all accused involved in American Journalist Daniel Pearl murder case, reported The Express Tribune.

The three-judge bench led by Justice Umar Ata Bandial will take up the Sindh government’s plea seeking a stay on the Sindh High Court (SHC) December 24 decision regarding the release of all accused persons.

Sindh government and Daniel Pearl’s parents have moved the SC against the Sindh High Court (SHC) on April 2, 2020 order to release the four men accused of abducting and killing the Wall Street Journal’s former South Asia bureau chief in 2002, reported The Express Tribune.

SHC division bench on April 2 commuted the death sentence of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to seven years and acquitted three others who were serving life terms. Sindh provincial government has challenged the April 2 order in the Supreme Court.

The three-judge bench on January 25 issued notices to the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) and all advocate generals for legal assistance in the matter, reported The Express Tribune.

Earlier on last Monday’s hearing, Sindh Advocate General Suleman Talibuddin claimed that the SHC’s Dec 24 release order did not contain detailed reasons.

“One of the findings recorded by the [SHC] short order is that the respondents [accused persons] are not ‘enemy aliens’ within the meaning of Article 10 (9) of the Constitution. Meaning of this term is hitherto judicially unexplained,” Talibuddin said.

The Sindh government claimed that the accused persons fall in the category of “enemy aliens”. The three-judge bench will examine the legal term “enemy aliens” that needs to be explained in the context of the Daniel Pearl murder case.

Sindh government told the SC bench that they had placed material as proof on record of the SCH as justification but the same was rejected.

“Now the Sindh government has requested the bench to pronounce authoritative judgment on the law and facts,” said the order-sheet issued by the Justice Bandial bench.’

The AGP Khalid Jawed Khan told the bench that the SHC in its short order had barred the Sindh government from exercising its authority under Article 10 except with the permission of the court, reported the Express Tribune.

He said the same constitutional provision authorises the provincial government to pass preventive detention of an individual.

The AGP contended that the jurisdiction reserved to itself by the SHC is vested by the Constitution in the appropriate review board. As a result, the petitioner government has been divested of its powers conferred by the Constitution and regulated by the law, he stated.