ISLAMABAD- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf would discuss the death sentence a Pakistani court has awarded to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case.

Straw will seek reconsideration of the death sentence for converting the same to life imprisonment. It may be mentioned here that Omar Sheikh is a British national and British law condemns capital punishment.

“Omar Sheikh is a British national and we treat him as such. We are trying to have counsellor access to Omar Sheikh and in this regard we are in touch with the Foreign Office of Pakistan. We oppose capital punishment. I don’t recall that anyone in Britain has been sentenced to death during the last 50-55 years,” said Colin Hicks, the British High Commission’s spokesperson.

Sources further said Straw will also discuss a series of ads published by Daily Ummat, Karachi in which the newspaper had glorified the most wanted terrorists of al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden as mujahideen. Ummat had published these ads in response to a series of ads got published by the Government of Pakistan in which the latter had declared Osama bin Laden and 17 of his associates as dangerous religious terrorists and solicited public’s support in their arrest.
Source: The News
Date:7/20/2002