How Omar Saeed Sheikh Got Acquitted Of Daniel Pearl's Murder

How Omar Saeed Sheikh Got Acquitted Of Daniel Pearl's Murder
The life of Omar Saeed Sheikh, a London School of Economics drop-out, has many shades, not all of them clear but inexorably connected with al-Qaeda, 9/11, MI-6 and India, writes Vappala Balachandran.

https://www.outlookindia.com/website...Uo-hlz_CIRiKl4

Vappala Balachandran 19 April 2020

On April 8, Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani military scientist and a political commentator, wrote that Omar Saeed Sheikh was “let go, because someone in Pakistan wanted him freed, like mentor Masood Azhar”. Sheikh was charged with killing Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, and sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court in July 2002. On April 2, 2020, the High Court, however, convicted him only of kidnapping and sentenced him to 7 years in jail. He had already spent 18 years in prison. Pakistan prevented his release by detaining him and three co-accused. While denouncing his acquittal, US State department hailed Pakistan’s decision to appeal.

The life of Omar Saeed Sheikh, a London School of Economics drop-out, has many shades, not all of them clear but inexorably connected with al-Qaeda, 9/11, MI-6 and India. On September 10, 2005, the late Michael Meacher, then a Labour MP, hinted his relationship with the British government in The Guardian. He quoted former US federal prosecutor John Loftus that British Intelligence had used al-Muhajiron for the Serbian War in Kosovo. Former President Pervez Musharraf was more direct in accusing him of being an MI-6 spy in his “In the Line of Fire” (2008).

In 1994, Sheikh was arrested in India for kidnapping four foreign tourists to highlight global attention on Kashmir. However, he was released at Kandahar on 31 December 1999 when India weakly allowed two other hardened terrorists, Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, in exchange for 154 hostages in the hijacked Indian Airlines 814 from Kathmandu. A free, emboldened and strengthened Maulana Azhar would gleefully organize attacks on our Parliament in 2001 and unleash unremitting terrorism in Kashmir valley. Sheikh would assume leadership roles in 9/11 financing and the abduction-killing of Daniel Pearl in 2002.

It was unfortunate that neither the US National Commission on 9/11 attacks nor US agencies took note of certain developments concerning Omar Saeed Sheikh before the attack on India. The 9/11 Commission had observed on page 172 of their final report released on July 26, 2004: “To date, US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks”.

On 19 June 2003, I had given a lecture at the Cosmos Club, Washington DC, in the presence of leading think tank experts and State Department officials. The subject was “Better Intelligence Management of Terrorism: A blueprint for National Commission investigating 9/11”. Among other points, I had mentioned the linkage and friendship between Indian criminal Aftab Ansari alias Farhan Mallik and Omar Saeed Sheikh in an Uttar Pradesh jail in the early 1990s and how this had resulted in possible 9/11 terror-financing.

Fifty days before 9/11, Ansari’s gang abducted Partha Burman, a Kolkata businessman on July 21, 2001. Burman’s family had to pay a huge ransom, estimated to have been 3 crores of Indian rupees (Roughly US 600,000 then) to get him released. The police in India had found that part of this money was transferred through hawala channels to Omar Saeed Sheikh in Pakistan via Dubai. Later Ansari organized an armed attack on US Consulate, Kolkata on January 22, 2002. Our very vigilant CBI tracked him in Dubai and got him deported to India on February 9 before he could board a flight to Islamabad.

“India Abroad” Weekly, then published from New York, had confirmed in their issue of 13 September 2002 that the hawala money was sent to Shafeeq, Dawood Ibrahim’s aide in Dubai who transferred it to Omar Saeed Sheikh. Significantly Michael Meacher mentioned that Sheikh “at the behest of Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $ 100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker”. He says this was confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI’s financial crimes unit”. Later mention of the same details was made by Rand analyst Rollie Lal in “Orbis” (Spring 2005) of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia.

The Daniel Pearl murder case against Omar Saeed Sheikh was already adversely affected by the Pearl Project’s parallel investigations and forensic “Vein matching”. In January 2011 they reported that Pearl was killed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). Incidentally, KSM’s trial in a military court is to start on January 11, 2021.

Daniel Pearl: Parents of murdered journalist launch appeal in Pakistan

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-...GT3lwVIjFWWdSI

3/3/2020

The parents of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl have filed an appeal with Pakistan's Supreme Court to reverse a ruling overturning the convictions of four men in the case.

Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded in 2002 while investigating Islamist militants in Karachi, Pakistan.

Last month a court in Karachi overturned the death sentence of the man convicted of masterminding the killing, and acquitted three others.

The ruling was widely condemned.

Pearl was the Wall Street Journal's Asia bureau chief when he was abducted and killed. A graphic video of his killing was sent to the US consulate a month later.

In a video statement, his father Judea Pearl said: "We have filed an appeal of this decision to the Pakistan Supreme Court.

"We are standing up for justice not only for our son, but for all our dear friends in Pakistan so they can live in a society free of violence and terror and raise their children in peace and harmony."

Their petition adds to one already filed by prosecutors.

The accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being held at Guantanamo Bay detention centre, has said he personally beheaded Pearl.

Mohammed told US interrogators he killed the journalist with his "blessed right hand", according to the Pentagon. The confession was made under torture and Mohammed - whose trial date for the 11 September 2001 attacks has been set for next year - has not been charged with Pearl's murder.

Shortly after their acquittal the four men - including the convicted mastermind Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh - were re-arrested. They will be held for at least three months as the appeals play out.

Sheikh's death sentence had been reduced to seven years in prison for kidnapping.

The Committee to Protect Journalists voiced its support for the appeal, and said that releasing the four men in the case "would only add to the threats facing journalists in Pakistan and deepen Pakistan's reputation as a haven for terrorists".

What happened to Daniel Pearl?
Pearl went missing in January 2002.

He had been researching links between Islamist militant activity in Karachi and Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a passenger plane using bombs hidden in his shoes.

According to prosecutors, Sheikh lured him to a meeting with an Islamic cleric. The two had built up a relationship discussing concerns about their wives, who were both pregnant at the time.

Almost a month later, a video showing the 38-year-old's beheading was sent to the US consulate in Karachi.

Pearl's son, Adam, was born in May 2002.

Sheikh was convicted of Pearl's murder in July 2002 by an anti-terrorism court, and has been on death row since.

Who is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh?
Sheikh was born in London in 1973, where he attended public school before going on to study at the London School of Economics. He did not graduate, failing to return after driving aid to conflict-wracked Bosnia after his first year.

He was arrested for involvement in the kidnapping of four tourists - three British and one American - in Delhi in 1994.

Sheikh was released from prison as part of demands by militants who hijacked a plane in 1999.

According to news agency Reuters, police in India later accused him of transferring money to one of the militants who flew a plane into the World Trade Center on 9/11.