Co-accused in Pearl case pleads innocence
HYDERABAD- The defence counsel of the co-accused in the Daniel Pearl case recorded his objections here on Saturday before the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge, Syed Ali Ashraf Shah, to putting irrelevant and wrong questions to his clients.
Counsel Rai Basheer Ahmed said the questions were not in accordance with guidelines, laid down by the superior courts, for recording statements of the accused under section 342 Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
He told journalists he informed the judge that superior courts had laid down clear guidelines for trial courts regarding section 342 (statement of accused), mentioning therein accused could only be confronted with those questions whose incriminating evidence was on the court record. He said that queries, put by the court, had no nexus with the pieces of evidence against the co-accused brought on record.
The co-accused, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil, have recorded their statements, pleaded innocence and rejected charges levelled against them by the police in charge-sheet of the case. They replied the questions through their counsel.
The ATC judge put 27 questions to Naseem and 16 each to Saqib and Adil. Naseem has accused the police officials of working under subordination of the FBI and alleged they had concocted every piece of evidence against him and added the prosecution witnesses were either police officials or their agents.
He denied any complicity with the other co-accused in kidnapping of Daniel Pearl and preparation of the video of his murder, as claimed by the prosecution. He said from the conflicting statements of FBI agent John Moligan and investigation officer Hameedullah Memon it had been proved that serial numbers of the recovered laptop and the other, allegedly used by him for sending e-mails to different organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, were different.
He said Moligan’s deposition the laptop was neither used after Feb 4 nor before Feb 2 also belied testimonies of Shaikh Naeem and Iqbal Mehmood, adding the e-mails were sent on Jan 30. He said the laptop was shown to have been recovered from him on Feb 11 whereas the FBI official received it on Feb 4. He denied having ever lived at the place whose address was mentioned in the memo of his arrest and also using line no- No 66 from sub-server of Sheikh Naeem, a prosecution witness (PW).
Naseem said he did not expect justice from the court as “the ATC and the government are working under the US pressure”. He said since he respected law of the land, he was defending himself out of compulsion.
Saqib also expressed no confidence in judicial system of the country and added he believed in Shariat laws and he was defending himself because of his parents.
Saqib and Naseem claimed Judicial Magistrate Erum Jehangir had deposed before the court their confessional statements were not voluntary therefore, they could not be used as pieces of evidence against them.
The third co-accused, Adil, an official of the special branch, said he on Feb 12 for the first time saw Omer Sheikh in the Crime Investigation Department (CID) Centre, Karachi where he was detained and Sheikh was brought from Islamabad.
He said in the show-cause notice issued to him by his department it was clearly mentioned that he was formally arrested on Feb 5 in the case notwithstanding the fact the case was lodged at 11:45 pm on Feb 4 when he was already in custody. He said he was a permanent resident of North Karachi and a wrong address was mentioned in memo of his arrest.
According to Barrister Zahoor-ul-Haque, a senior member of the prosecution team, the court had summoned the district and sessions judge, Muzaffargarh, Raoof Sheikh, through the registrar of the Lahore High Court (LHC) to appear before the ATC on June 27 to depose as defence witness. He said the court would examine Raoof Sheikh, maternal uncle of Omar Sheikh, and father of the accused, Ahmed Saeed Sheikh, as defence witnesses on June 27.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/23/2002
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