Appeal filed against Pearl prison sentences

LAWYERS defending three men sentenced to life imprisonment in Pakistan for their role in the kidnap and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl said they had filed an appeal against the verdict yesterday.

Lawyers for British-born Islamic militant Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death for masterminding the crime, were expected to appeal that verdict as well.

Appeal papers for his three accomplices, Sheikh Adil, Fahad Naseem and Salman Saqib, had been filed in the provincial Sindh High Court in Karachi, their lawyers said.

"I hope the high court will examine the case without any pressure and...will live up to its reputation," defence lawyer Rai Bashir told reporters outside the court.

Tuesday, prosecutors filed an appeal asking for the three accomplices to be sentenced to death. Bashir said he was appealing on the grounds that not a single prosecution witness had said any of his clients were involved in conspiracy, kidnapping or murder of Pearl.

"On this basis, to convict my clients in conspiracy, kidnapping and murder, was illegal and unjustified," he said.

Bashir said he had no immediate intention of appealing on the grounds the police and prosecution had withheld evidence from the trial, as a report carried by the Daily News in Pakistan and the Washington Post suggested.

The report argued the case could go for a re-trial if it emerged police withheld evidence about several other arrests made in the case, including that of a man who led them to a shallow grave he said contained Pearl's remains.

Karachi police chief Sayed Kamal Shah told Reuters that DNA tests had not established the identity of the body and also denied that anyone else had been detained in the case.

"The prosecution is not admitting that the body is of Daniel Pearl," Bashir said. "Unless the prosecution admits that the body is that of Pearl, there is no point in raising this issue."

"The police is also not putting on record the arrest of a few people in connection with the recovery of the body," he added. "If the authorities put on record the additional arrests made in this connection then the case might go for a re-trial in view of new evidences."

The court has not set a date for hearing the appeals.