Pearl murderer stays defiant

A BRITISH Muslim was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging in Pakistan for the kidnap and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, 28, a former public schoolboy from Wanstead, east London, was defiant: “We will see who will die first, me or the authorities who have arranged the death sentence for me,” he told the judge.

His three accomplices were sentenced to 25 years each by the judge at the special anti-terrorism court in Hyderabad prison. Saeed was transferred to the death row immediately after he was sentenced.

Pakistani braced for a violent reaction by Islamic extremists, already angered by President Pervez Musharraf’s support for the US in the war on terrorism.

Police helicopters prowled the skies above Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and a centre of Islamic extremism.

Hyderabad’s police chief said 600 police were on alert near the prison and 2,000 others deployed nearby.

The US embassy in Islamabad went on a “heightened state of security readiness” after the verdict, a spokesman said.

Defence lawyers said they would appeal against Judge Ali Ashraf Shah’s verdict on Saeed and Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Shaikh Adil.

Saeed’s father, Ahmed Sheikh, said “an innocent man has been punished” because Musharraf had demanded a conviction.

In a statement read outside the prison by his lawyer, Saeed said: “Musharraf should know that Almighty Allah is there and can get his revenge. Now the jihad (holy war) between Islam and non-Muslims is going on and everybody is showing whether he is in favour of Islam or in favour of the non-believers.”

The defendants were also collectively fined £20,000. Chief prosecutor Raja Quereshi said the money would go to Pearl’s widow Mariane and their baby son, who was born after his father was killed.

The Pearl family said they were “grateful for the tireless efforts” by US and Pakistani authorities “to bring those guilty of Danny’s kidnapping and murder to justice.”

Seven more suspects, including those who apparently killed Pearl, remain at large.

The 38-year-old journalist disappeared on January 23 in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani militants and Londoner Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber”. Reid is awaiting trial in the US after being

arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his trainers.

A videotape received by US diplomats in February confirmed Pearl was dead. A body believed to be Pearl’s was found in May in a Karachi suburb. DNA tests are pending.

Saeed admitted his role on the kidnapping during his first court appearance on February 14 but later recanted. The statement was not admissible because it was not made under oath.

During the trial, a taxi driver testified he saw Saeed usher the journalist into a car on the night he disappeared. The defence produced only two character witnesses, Saeed’s father and uncle. The Pearl kidnapping was the first of five attacks against Westerners in Pakistan this year. Thirteen have died in bomb attacks.

A dozen people, including nine Europeans, were injured on Saturday in an apparent grenade attack at an archaeological site north of Islamabad.

Also on Saturday, Pakistani newspapers received e-mail purportedly from Asif Ramzi, one of those sought in the Pearl case, threatening more attacks against foreigners.