An open letter to president Pervez Musharraf

Two years ago to the day, Omar Sheikh was sentenced to death for the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. Since then several other suspects have been arrested but no trials have opened. Reporters Without Borders urges the president of Pakistan to continue to ensure that the full facts are uncovered about this barbaric killing.

His Honourable Pervez Musharraf President of the Republic Islamabad - Pakistan

Dear Mr President,

It is two years to the day since Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, better known as Omar Sheikh, was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorist court in Hyderabad for the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl.

On 18 January 2004, Omar Sheikh was transferred by helicopter from Hyderabad prison to Adiala detention centre near Rawalpindi (close to Islamabad). Interior ministry spokesman Abdur Rauf Chaudhry described it as a security measure. He said, "Dangerous criminals form themselves into groups if they are allowed to stay in the same place for too long (…) That is why they are moved to different prisons".

But other sources, in particular those quoted by the daily New York Times, reported a link with the assassination attempt against you on 25 December 2003. The move would therefore have been to interrogate Omar Sheikh on the implication of his group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, in the suicide bombing. In fact one of the bombers was a Kashmiri and former Jaish-e-Mohammad militant. Another line was given by the newspaper Dawn that said that the military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) based in Rawalpindi, wanted to question Omar Sheikh about his links with Al-Qaeda.

The two judges at the Sind High Court in charge of Omar Sheikh's appeal and that of his accomplices asked the authorities on 17 February 2004 to explain the transfer. His lawyer had asked for his client to be brought before the court. "I asked for a medical examination for Omar because he could have been tortured in Rawalpindi", he told the press. "However the court wants to examine the transfer order before deciding about the medical examination." The lawyer also pointed out that the transfer violated Articles 29, 41 and 161 of the prison code that that forbids the transfer of a prisoner awaiting an appeal out of the High Court's jurisdiction. On their part, the prison authorities presented a federal government transfer order for Omar Sheikh with no further explanation. The federal government replied to the court on 26 February that the reasons for the transfer could not be revealed because they related to a sensitive matter. Since then the authorities have confined themselves to advancing security reasons to explain the decision.

Reporters Without Borders would like to be informed about the precise reasons for the transfer of Omar Sheikh, all the more so since his appeal in southern Sind Province has been blocked by this decision.

In the event of an appeal trial, Reporters Without Borders asks you to intervene with the relevant authorities so that journalists can attend the trial hearings. During the first trial, the press was excluded from the proceedings.

Independently of this appeal, our organisation wonders if there are to be other charges against people who have been arrested in the past few months. On 16 April 2003, Fazal Karim, one of the chief suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, was remanded in custody for drug possession in Thatta district (Sind province). According to several sources, Karim was arrested in July 2002, by Pakistani security forces and the CIA in Karachi, at the same time as other suspects in the investigation into the killing of the Wall Street Journal reporter. According to his lawyer, police then secretly and illegally detained Karim for nearly eight months.

On 29 May 2003, it was the turn to be arrested of Qari Abdul Hai, suspected leader of the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, at Muzaffargarh (near Multan, east-central Pakistan). Despite being suspected of involvement in the kidnapping he was not charged in the case. He was appearing in court for the murder of six Shiites in 1994, a crime for which he is at risk of a death sentence.

In October 2003, US administration officials told the Wall Street Journal that they suspected a direct responsibility on the part of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, number 3 in the terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003. Karim apparently told Pakistani investigators that he saw the al-Qaeda leader slit the journalist's throat. This report that was carried in January by American magazine Time has not been confirmed either by the Pakistanis or the Americans. Reporters Without Borders intends to apply in the next few days to the US government, which is detaining Khalid Sheikh Mohammed secretly, to seek additional information on his implication in the murder of Daniel Pearl.

Finally, Pakistani police said on 16 April 2004 that they had arrested two further suspects in the case. Malik Tasaddaq and Nadir Khan, alias Sajjad, militants in Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, were questioned separately in Punjab province. An intelligence official quoted by Agence France-Presse, said that Tasaddaq, who was arrested in March, reportedly took photos of Daniel Pearl during his captivity.

Since the conviction of Omar Sheikh and his three accomplices, at least five other suspects have been picked up in Pakistan. These successes on the part of the security forces should continue before the courts. During the Omar Sheikh trial, investigators said that seven suspects were on the run. Does this mean that there are now only two suspects still at large ?

Reporters Without Borders considers that it is necessary for public opinion to know if these men, suspected of having ordered or participated in the murder of Daniel Pearl, will be accused and tried for this crime. It seems to us important that, two years after the trial, the Pakistani government should continue to work for justice to be done in the killing of the journalist.

In addition, the authorities have never clarified the fate of the three suspects, who led to the body of Daniel Pearl and who apparently in 2003 made new revelations about the murder.

Robert Ménard Secretary General