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DPA
Islamabad
The Pakistani foreign minister said on Saturday that the government will file an appeal against a court decision acquitting the man accused of the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
“It has been decided to file an appeal against the decision in the Supreme Court,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a statement.
The US had expressed concerns over the decision, which Qureshi said were “natural.”
“It is now up to the court either to dismiss or [uphold] the appeal,” he said.
Sindh High Court on Thursday overturned the death sentence on Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a British Pakistani man accused of killing and kidnapping the US journalist.
Three of his co-defendants who were handed life prison terms in 2002 were also acquitted.
The four men were supposed to walk free but they were re-arrested after one day under a law that allows Pakistani authorities to keep people in detention for up to three months without any charge.
Pearl, a New Delhi-based South Asia correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and killed in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in February 2002.
He was among numerous Western journalists who were in Pakistan to cover the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001.
Islamabad
The Pakistani foreign minister said on Saturday that the government will file an appeal against a court decision acquitting the man accused of the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
“It has been decided to file an appeal against the decision in the Supreme Court,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a statement.
The US had expressed concerns over the decision, which Qureshi said were “natural.”
“It is now up to the court either to dismiss or [uphold] the appeal,” he said.
Sindh High Court on Thursday overturned the death sentence on Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a British Pakistani man accused of killing and kidnapping the US journalist.
Three of his co-defendants who were handed life prison terms in 2002 were also acquitted.
The four men were supposed to walk free but they were re-arrested after one day under a law that allows Pakistani authorities to keep people in detention for up to three months without any charge.
Pearl, a New Delhi-based South Asia correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and killed in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in February 2002.
He was among numerous Western journalists who were in Pakistan to cover the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2001.
