Men accused of killing journalist demand public trial

Four men accused of kidnapping and killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl today challenged the Pakistani’s Government’s decision to try them behind prison walls, saying a closed trial violates Pakistani law.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, accused of masterminding the January 23 kidnapping, and three accomplices are scheduled to stand trial on April 5 before an anti-terrorism court on charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism.

The Government has ordered that the trial should be held in a jail in the capital, Karachi, because of security reasons.

But in a written application today, the four asked the high court in Sindh province to order that the trial should be held in an open courtroom.

The court has not scheduled a hearing on the request, submitted by Saeed, Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Sheikh Mohammed Adeel.

Pearl was kidnapped while researching links between Pakistani extremists and Richard Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami as he was allegedly trying to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.

In February, Saeed, 29, admitted during a court hearing that he was involved in Pearl’s kidnapping.

But he later withdrew the statement, which was not made under oath.

US diplomats received a videotape the same month confirming that Pearl, 38, had been killed.

Saeed has also been indicted by a US federal grand jury in New Jersey over the kidnapping and killing of Pearl, whose wife is about to give birth to their first 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’’.

Pakistan plans to prosecute Saeed before deciding whether to hand him over to the US. The two countries have no extradition treaty.

Much of the Pakistani Government’s case rests on the testimony of two key witnesses, including co-defendant Naseem. Police arrested him after tracing e-mails sent to Pakistani and US news organisations back to his laptop.

Naseem told police he sent the e-mails, which included pictures of Pearl in captivity, on Saeed’s orders.

Also, 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.

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 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.

Seven other people have been accused in the Pearl case, but have not been apprehended.