KARACHI- Police have, so far, not made any substantive progress in their efforts to arrest the killers of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Although police and the government have taken the videotape as genuine in which the US reporter is shown being slaughtered, section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code has not been appended to the First Information Report (FIR) 24/2002 dated Feb 5, registered at Artillery Maidan police station under section 365-A read with section 7-A of the Anti-terrorism Act.
The senior police officials and prosecutors, including those engaged in the investigation of Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and killing case. They were of the view that police did not have substantive evidence about the killing of Daniel Pearl, which could be produced in a court of law.
They said section 364 of Pakistan Panel Code (PPC) should be applied, instead of section 365-A of the ATA (kidnapping for ransom), to the case. They said technically Daniel Pearl was not kidnapped but he went somewhere to meet someone of his own free will where he was made captive. If a person went of his own free will to meet someone somewhere and there he was confined illegally and there were apprehensions that he might have been killed, then section 364 of PPC could be applied. If the person was killed then section 302 of PPC could be applied, the senior officials said.
They said police had not found the body or remains of Daniel Pearl, nor had they recovered the weapon used in the killing. Also, police had not identified the place where the movie had been shot and where the incident took place.
They expressed the opinion that the content of the videotape was also of doubtful nature as this could be fictitious, and only this evidence could not be used in a court of law to substantiate the claim of the prosecution that Daniel Pearl had been killed, they added.
They said it could well be argued that if the killers could send a videotape showing Daniel’s killing, they could also send an electronic mail informing law-enforcement agencies about his dead body. Without the recovery of body dead or its remains, the death of a person remained doubtful in the eyes of law, they maintained.
The FIR, on the complaint of Marianne Pearl, wife of Daniel Pearl, reporter of the Wall Street Journal, was registered on Feb 5. Police arrested three suspects, Salman Saquib, Shaikh Adil and Fahd Naseem, for their alleged involvement in sending an e-mail message containing Daniel Pearl’s photographs in captivity, on Feb 5.
Police showed the arrest of the key suspect, British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, on Feb 12 in Punjab, but the suspect claimed in a court that he had offered himself for arrest on Feb 5.
A seat in the name of Daniel Pearl on a PIA flight, PK-757C, for London was reserved on Feb 4, which was later cancelled on the passenger’s request on Feb 8. Police received a videotape through the US Consulate in Karachi on Feb 21 in which Daniel Pearl is shown being killed.
Source: Dawn
Date:3/6/2002
