Omar Sheikh rejects prosecution charges: Daniel Pearl case
HYDERABAD- Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the main accused in the Daniel Pearl murder case, deposed before the Anti-terrorism Court judge, Syed Ali Ashraf Shah, here on Friday that all the allegations against him in the prosecution case were false.
He told the court that his father, Ahmed Saeed Sheikh, and maternal uncle, Raoof Sheikh, who was also the district and session judge, Muzaffargarh, had handed him over to the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Lahore on Feb 5.
He said that he had given himself up fearing his extra-judicial death as his close relatives had already been subjected to harassment by the police.
Omar Sheikh told the court that he would produce his father and the uncle as defence witnesses.
Through the senior defence counsel, Abdul Waheed Katpar, Omar Sheikh submitted a six-page statement to the court claiming that all the evidences against him were fabricated to appease the United States and prove loyalty to the Americans and so-called efficiency (of investigation agencies).
His statement also rejected the ‘English judicial system’ and read that he would accept any verdict given by a court set up under Shariat laws. The accused said that he was defending himself in the case on his father’s insistence.
He has made his statement under section 342 Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.PC) without an oath which meant that he would not be subjected to cross-examination by the prosecution. He also rejected as false his Feb 14 ‘confessional statement’ made before an ATC judge, Arshad Noor Khan, when he was produced for his remand.
Omar Sheikh claimed that his case was transferred from the court of Abdul Ghafoor Memon on the ‘pretext’ of threats to the prosecution lawyers or blowing-up of the trial court. No such thing happened as the prosecution team members travelled from Karachi to Hyderabad, he added.
He said that he was in Lahore on Jan 23 when Daniel Pearl was kidnapped. He also denied having asked Fahad Naseem and Salman Saqib, other accused in the case, to send any e-mail.
The confessional statements of the accused, he claimed, had been obtained through torture. He quoted the concerned judicial magistrate as categorically deposing that the statements were not voluntary.
About the videocassette, evidence on the court record and containing the shots of Daniel Pearl’s gruesome murder, Omar Sheikh said that it was still not known that who had prepared the video or who had given it to John Moligan or in whose presence it was made. He indicated that no one had been examined in this regard.
As many as 28 questions were put by the ATC judge and Omar Sheikh replied to all of them in negative. He also refused to give a statement on oath under section 340 Cr.PC saying that it was not necessary because he had not committed any offence as charged by the prosecution.
Replying to a question, the accused denied hatching any conspiracy to kidnap the Wall Street Journal reporter and sending any demands to the newspaper or any other organization by e-mails. He claimed that the specimen of his handwriting and that of Adil Sheikh were manipulated by police during their detention in Karachi.
The Chief Prosecutor and Advocate General (AG), Sindh, Raja Qureshi, told newsmen after the Friday’s proceedings that the judge covered each and every aspect of the case in his set of questions put to the prime accused.
The counsel said that Omar Sheikh did not outright deny having made certain utterances before Arshad Noor Khan on Feb 14 about the kidnapping but the accused pointed out that his statement was not on oath and therefore it should be discarded as inadmissible.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/22/2002
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