The appeal against the decision to launder four men imprisoned for 18 years in Pakistan for the kidnapping and murder in 2002 of American journalist Daniel Pearl opened Tuesday (December 1st) in Islamabad.
Read also: Pakistan: the four men acquitted for the murder of Daniel Pearl remain in prison
In April, the High Court of Sindh Province overturned the death sentence for the murder of British-Pakistani extremist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and commuted his sentence to seven years in prison for kidnapping, a period covered by his 18 years in detention.
Three other men, Salman Saquib, Fahad Nasim and Sheikh Adil, sentenced in July 2002 to life imprisonment for having sent e-mails claiming the journalist's kidnapping, had been acquitted by the same court.
But the province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital, then the parents of Daniel Pearl, had appealed, which had led to the continued detention of the four accused.
The appeal began to be heard on Tuesday at the Supreme Court in Islamabad.
"
The trial has finally opened, it will be decided whether they (
the accused, note)
should be convicted or acquitted.
The case is heading towards a final verdict
, ”said Faisal Siddiqui, lawyer for Daniel Pearl's parents.
The various lawyers will make their preliminary statements on Wednesday in the context of this appeal trial, which has been postponed several times in recent months.
Daniel Pearl, 38, correspondent for the American daily The Wall Street Journal, disappeared on January 23, 2002 in Karachi.
A video showing his decapitation was delivered a month later to the United States consulate in this megalopolis.
An independent investigation carried out for three years within the framework of the “
Pearl Project
” had determined in 2011 that the Pakistani justice had erred, the four men condemned for the assassination of the journalist not even being present during his execution.
According to Asra Nomani, a former colleague and friend of Daniel Pearl, who led this investigation, it is Pakistani Khaled Cheikh Mohammed (KSM according to his initials in English), the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in United States, which executed him.
KSM, arrested in Pakistan in 2003, is being held in the US prison at Guantanamo, Cuba.
A psychologist who had questioned him claimed that the detainee had confessed to him that he had beheaded the American journalist.
