Kidnap-murder case Briton appears in Karachi court

Pakistani police today ringed the colonial-era courthouse in Karachi where a Briton was appearing for the kidnap-killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl, in a massive show of force before the hearing.

The case following the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl is widely seen as a test of Pakistan’s commitment to combat religious extremism.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, originally from Wanstead, east London, is said to have masterminded the January 23 kidnapping, and his three accomplices have been charged by police in connection with the abduction.

US diplomats received a videotape last month confirming that the 38-year-old Pearl had been murdered.

Last week, chief prosecutor Raja Quereshi presented the charges against Saeed and 10 others, most of them at large. A judge is expected to rule today whether there is enough evidence to begin hearing witnesses.

Saeed, 29, was charged on March 14 by a federal grand jury in New Jersey with the kidnapping and killing of Pearl, whose wife is about to give birth to their only child. The charges carry the death penalty.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft said Saeed ‘‘methodically set a death trap for Daniel Pearl, lured him into it with lies and savagely ended his life’’.

US authorities also unsealed an indictment that had charged Saeed last year in a 1994 kidnapping of an American in India.

Pearl, the Journal’s South Asian bureau chief, was researching links between Pakistani extremists and Briton Richard Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes.

Pakistan has said it would prosecute Saeed first before deciding whether to hand him over to the United States. The two countries have no extradition treaty.

The case is widely seen as a barometer of President Pervez Musharraf’s commitment to combat Islamic extremism in Pakistan, which had cultivated ties to militant groups, including those fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Pakistan had also been the closest ally of the Afghan Taliban until the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. After that, Musharraf abandoned the Taliban and its al Qaida allies and threw his support behind the US-led war against terrorism.

Under pressure from the United States and India, Musharraf banned five Islamic extremist groups in January, two of them accused by India of the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi.

Saeed, who was arrested before Pearl was confirmed dead, is believed to have links to one of those groups - Jaish-e-Mohammed, or Army of Mohammed.

Last month, Saeed admitted during a court hearing that he was involved in the Pearl kidnapping but later withdrew the statement, which was not made under oath.

Much of the government’s case rests on the testimony of two key witnesses, including co-defendant Fahad Naseem. Police arrested Naseem after tracing e-mails sent to Pakistani and US news organisations to his laptop. Naseem told police he sent the e-mails, which included pictures of Pearl in captivity, on Saeed’s orders.

Taxi driver Nasir Abbas has reportedly told police that he drove Pearl to a restaurant in Karachi the night he disappeared. Court documents show that Abbas identified Saeed as the man seen escorting Pearl into another vehicle.

Quereshi, the chief prosecutor, said he would call 31 witnesses, including FBI agents, to testify for the prosecution.

After studying at the London School of Economics, Saeed joined Islamic militant groups following a visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s.

He was arrested in India in 1994 for the kidnapping of Western backpackers in Kashmir. He spent the next five years in jail, but was never tried.

He was freed in December 1999 after gunmen hijacked an Indian Airlines jet to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and demanded the release of Saeed and two other militants.