KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday was informed that an accused in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was arrested over eight years ago has fallen ill due to an inordinate delay in the trial.

A single bench of the SHC headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar was seized with an application of defendant Mohammad Hashim for the transfer of his trial from an anti-terrorism court in Hyderabad to Karachi.

The court directed the assistant prosecutor general to file comments on the matter by May 26, the next date of hearing.

The 38-year-old US national and South Asia Bureau Chief of the WSJ, who was researching a story on religious extremists, was kidnapped on Jan 23, 2002 in Karachi and later beheaded by his captors.

The main accused mastermind, Ahmed Omer Sheikh, was condemned to death on charges of kidnapping and killing the US journalist, while his three accomplices — Fahad Naseem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Mohammad Adil — were given life term and fine of Rs50,000 each by an ATC in Hyderabad on July 15, 2002.

The court had also directed the convicts to pay Rs2 million to the victim’s widow, Mariane Pearl.

Accused Hashim, arrested on Sept 6, 2005, was among the seven others who were declared absconders in the case.

On Monday, the counsel for Hashim informed the court that his trial had come to a halt following the transfer of the presiding judge of the ATC Hyderabad, Javed Alam. He said the newly posted judge, Abdul Ghafoor Memon, had already declined to proceed with the case when he had been the presiding judge of the ATC-II in Karachi.

The counsel said the delay in his trial was a gross violation of the anti-terrorism laws that required speedy trial of the accused persons. He said that the inordinate delay had added to the suffering of the applicant who had fallen ill.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2014