April 2, 2002	Tuesday	Muharram 18,1423

KARACHI, April 1: An application challenging trial of the accused in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case inside Karachi Central Prison would come up before the Sindh High Court on Thursday, counsel for the accused said on Monday.

Abdul Waheed Katpar, counsel for the prime suspect, Omar Shaikh, has filed an application (87/2002) on behalf of his client and three other co-accused, praying for setting aside the impugned notification of the Sindh government and for conducting trial of the case in open court.

Mr Katpar has filed the application on behalf of Omar Shaikh, Fahad Naseem, Shaikh Mohammed Adil and Salman Saqib, who are all confined in Karachi Central Prison.

It has been pointed out in the application that no reason has been assigned in the impugned notification as to why there should be trial inside prison.

When contacted, the Advocate-General Sindh, Raja Qureshi, said he had not yet received any notice in this regard.

He had said earlier that the government had decided that the trial should be held inside the prison “because of security reasons.”

The AG had stated that though the Anti-terrorism Act contemplated the conduct of in-camera trial, it was up to the provincial government to take a position in this regard.

It has been contended in the application that the proposed jail trial is in direct violation of section 352 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, under which all kinds of criminal inquiries of trials are to be held in open court, where the press and the public have the right to be present and to watch the proceedings.

“It is a pointer to the conclusion, that efforts are being made, to spread the cover of an umbrella, upon this false case that has been set up on false evidence,” the applicants have claimed.

Sources said counsel for the accused were under specific instructions from the clients to file an application with the SHC, most likely on Tuesday, maintaining that Arshad Noor Khan, the Judge of the anti-terrorism court-III, could not preside over proceedings of the trial.

Justice Shabbir Ahmed of the SHC, who is also Administrative Judge of the anti-terrorism courts at Karachi, in his order on March 29 had assigned the case to the ATC-III, presided over by Judge Arshad Noor Khan, and fixed the case for hearing on April 5.

Under the law, trial has to be completed in seven days. It is not yet clear whether the complainant, Mrs Daniel Pearl, who is pregnant, would be in a position to travel to Pakistan to enable the prosecution here to complete the trial within the mandated time frame.

Dead body of Daniel Pearl has not been recovered, cause of death is not known, place of murder has not been established, weapon of offence has not been recovered, nor has place of his confinement been identified.

The accused are Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh alias Muzaffar Farooq, Shaikh Mohammed Adil, Salman Saqib, Fahad Nasim, and seven absconders, Amjad Husai