British militant acquitted of Daniel Pearl killing to be moved to rest house for family visits

Saeed Sheikh, (C) the father of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, said: 'It is not a complete freedom. It is a step toward freedom.'

A British public schoolboy-turned-militant who was acquitted of the murder of an American journalist must be moved to a rest house for family visits, Pakistan’s top court ruled.

Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh will leave death row as a stepping stone to his release, in a decision which is likely to further anger Washington.

Pakistan’s government has been scrambling to keep Sheikh in prison since the supreme court last week upheld his acquittal in the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

That ruling was condemned as a travesty by Mr Pearl’s family and denounced as “an affront to terrorism victims everywhere”, by the US State Department.

A one-page order from the court said Sheikh “should be moved to a comfortable residential environment, something like a rest house where he can live a normal life".

The 47-year-old should be allowed to see family members between 8am and 5pm, but will not be allowed access to a telephone or the internet.

"It is not a complete freedom. It is a step toward freedom," Sheikh’s father, Ahmad Saeed Sheikh, told Reuters.

Pakistan’s government and the Pearl family have both filed an appeal to the Supreme Court as a final attempt to prevent Sheikh’s release, though the family lawyer said it was a long shot.

Mr Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi and later beheaded while investigating militant networks in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Sheikh and three associates were convicted of the crime in 2002.

The Pentagon in 2007 released a transcript in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, said he had killed Mr Pearl.

Sindh High Court in April 2020 acquitted Sheikh because of discrepancies in the original trial. Mr Pearl’s family and their supporters believe Sheikh was the mastermind of the kidnap and hostage taking, even if he did not execute the reporter himself, and is therefore responsible for the killing.

Sheikh was born in the UK and went to a private school before studying at the London School of Economics where he is believed to have become radicalised. He later went to South Asia and linked up with Pakistani militant groups. He was jailed in India in 1994 for helping to kidnap three Britons and an American in India and five years later released as part of a hostage swap with Pakistani militants who had hijacked an Indian airliner.