Pearl murder trial ends with demand for executions

Prosecutors in Pakistan demanded the death sentence yesterday for four men accused of the murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl as their 11-week trial drew to a close.

"We have established they are guilty and, keeping in view of the acts of international terrorism as well as the acts of terrorism at the national level, they deserve the normal prescribed sentence by law," the chief prosecutor, Raja Quereshi, said after the closed session of the anti-terrorism court in Hyderabad. "Yes, we demand the death penalty for all four."

Chief among the accused is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also known as Sheikh Omar, a British-born former public schoolboy who is said to have planned the kidnap and murder of Mr Pearl, 38, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Three others, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil, are charged with helping him.

Mr Pearl disappeared in the Pakistani city of Karachi on 23 January, while researching a story on Islamic extremists. Two months later the US embassy in Islamabad was sent a video showing Mr Pearl being beheaded. Human remains, believed to be his, were discovered in May. The results of DNA tests are pending. Mr Saeed and the three others were arrested in February and brought to court in April. Their lawyers say Pakistani investigators violated their rights, that the evidence is flawed and inconsistent, and some is fabricated.

Mr Saeed's arrest, for example, was announced on 12 February, but he insists he had secretly been held for a week before, when investigators had faked evidence. His lawyers say the three-minute video showing Mr Pearl's death is not conclusive evidence since only the hands of his murderers are visible, and the prosecution has found no witnesses to its production. Soon after his arrest in February, Mr Saeed admitted his part in the kidnap and killing but recanted the confession.

Mr Pearl, whose wife was expecting their first child when he was kidnapped, was the Journal's Bombay correspondent. He was in Karachi pursuing a story on the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives concealed in his shoes.

After Mr Pearl's disappearance, e-mails containing photographs of Mr Pearl with a gun to his head were sent to American newspapers and television stations, demanding the release of Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners. They claimed to be from a previously unknown group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty.

The journalist appears to have been seized because he was Jewish. His kidnappers initially claimed that Mr Pearl, whose parents are from Israel, was an agent for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. Later messages claimed he worked for the CIA. The prosecution says Mr Saeed lured him into a trap by promising to arrange an interview for him with a prominent Islamic leader. It claims Mr Pearl was abducted outside a restaurant and held in a shed on the edge of Karachi, near where the remains were uncovered.

Mr Saeed was born in Britain, educated at public school in Pakistan, studied at the London School of Economics and was a member of the British arm-wrestling team. His career as an Islamic extremist began a decade ago when he travelled to Bosnia to take relief supplies to besieged Muslims.

After dropping out of the LSE, he was recruited by Islamic militants in Pakistan and spent five years in prison in India for kidnapping British and American tourists.

But he regained his freedom in 1999, after members of the Islamic group with which he was associated hijacked an Indian Airlines passenger plane and diverted it to the Afghan city of Kandahar. After six days, Mr Saeed and other imprisoned militants were released in return for the hostages.

The trial originally began in Karachi but was moved to a high-security prison in Hyderabad because prosecution lawyers said their lives had been threatened. The verdict is expected on Monday.