SHC tells prison authorities to allow Omer Sheikh’s meeting with parents

The Sindh High Court directed the prison authorities on Thursday to allow a meeting between Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh and his parents as per the jail manual in accordance with the law.

The direction came on a petition of Sheikh and three other persons, whose death and life imprisonment sentences have been turned down by the SHC in the US journalist Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case, against an extension in three months’ detention order.

Sheikh, Fahad Naseem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Mohammad Adil have been detained by the home department under the Maintenance of Public Order for three months, following the acceptance of their appeals against their convictions on April 2.

The counsel for the petitioners submitted that the home department had placed the detainees under the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 prior to the expiry of the detention order under the MPO and extended their detentions for further three months under the anti-terrorism law on July 1. He submitted that the order for the detention of the petitioners under the anti-terrorism law was unlawful and malafidely issued by the home department.

He stated that the three months’ detention of the petitioners was extended without referring the matter to the federal review board, which had to be constituted by the chief justice of the high court, for further extension, and the impugned notification for the detention and the placement of the petitioners under the fourth schedule of the anti-terrorism act was unlawful.

The counsel submitted that neither a review board was constituted nor were its views sought for the extension of the detention of the petitioners; hence, the impugned notification of the detention of the petitioners were liable to be set aside.

He also questioned the power of proscription of a person under the fourth schedule by the provincial government and submitted that such power had been only vested to the federal government after amendments in 2014.

He contended that the notification for the detention of the petitioners was issued to defeat the spirit of the SHC judgment that noted that these appeals had been pending for the last 18 years during which time the appellants had been in jail.

The court was requested to set aside the impugned notification with regard to the detention of the petitioners, and to order releasing them forthwith.The additional advocate general of Sindh filed comments on behalf of the prison authorities. He submitted that Sheikh’s parents or any other persons were entitled to such rights and they would be allowed to see the petitioner as per the jail manual and in accordance with the law.

A division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro directed the prison authorities to allow a meeting of the petitioner with his parents as per jail manual and in accordance with the law. The court directed provincial law officer to file comments with regard to the detention of the petitioners under the anti-terrorism law and adjourned the hearing till September 15.

According to the home department notification, the Sindh government is satisfied that there exists apprehension that the detainees may indulge in the networking of terrorism if released and therefore they are required to be detained for the purpose of peace and tranquility by way of detaining them.

The SHC on April 2 had set aside the death sentences of Sheikh and the life imprisonment sentences of three Pakistanis in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping for ransom and murder case on anti-terrorism charges after 18 years’ hearings of appeals, observing the kidnapping for ransom and murder charges could not be established against them. The court however convicted Sheikh having found him guilty of abducting Pearl “by deceitful means” inducing him to go with him on the basis of the last scene evidence as “Pearl was never seen live again” and sentenced him to seven years in prison, which he had already undergone, with a fine of Rs2 million.

Pearl, a US national and the South Asian region bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped on January 23, 2002, in Karachi and later shown beheaded by his captors in a video tape when their demands were not met. He came to Pakistan to make contact with Pir Mubarak Shah Geelani in order to seek information in connection with an incident whereby a person known as Richard Reed later dubbed as shoe bomber, a follower of Geelani, had tried to blow up a commercial flight abroad after the 9/11 incident in 2001.