KARACHI, July 19: The Habib Bank Ltd on Thursday officially denied any responsibility in the murder case of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter slain by terrorists in 2002.

Pearl’s widow, Mariane, had named the bank in a lawsuit alleging that it knowingly conducted financial services on behalf of charities linked to extremist groups.

A top HBL executive Zaffar Aziz Osmani told the media that the bank had not been informed about the lawsuit and it was not involved in any acts of terrorism.

The suit named the al-Rashid Trust as a defendant among many other charities.

When contacted, the State Bank also maintained that it had not been informed about the lawsuit officially and only came to know of it through the media.

Some bankers said the proceedings of the ‘highly politicised’ case would be observed carefully by the local banking industry.