ISLAMABAD, May 6: The Supreme Court decided on Monday to hear the petition filed by Ahmad Omar Saeed Shaikh, principal accused in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, on Thursday.

The petition, seeking reversal of order of shifting the venue of trial from Karachi to Hyderabad, was taken up by a bench, comprising Justice Mian Mohammad Ajmal and Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi. It was, however, adjourned till Thursday on the request of Sindh Additional Advocate General Sulman Habibullah, who said Sindh Advocate General Raja Qureshi would appear himself.

The AAG, Sindh, however, opposed the request for the stay of proceeding during the pendency of the petition. Later, the AAG was heard telling the Attorney General for Pakistan that if the proceedings had been stayed by the apex court, it would have been crucial blow for the prosecution, as it was all set to produce two witnesses, who were coming from the United States, before the court.

Now when the court has refused to entertain the request for the stay of proceedings during the pendency of petition, the prosecution would produce the foreign witnesses before the trial court before the next date of hearing (Thursday) in the supreme court, the AAG said.

Ahmad Omar Saeed Shaikh, in his urgent appeal in the Supreme Court, had challenged the change of venue of his trial from Karachi to Hyderabad.

The petitioner, represented by K.M.A. Samdani and Shahbaz Bukhari, had contended that the SHC had bypassed its own principle that no party to litigation was entitled to choose its own court.

The petitioner also questioned the decision of the SHC not to show the information placed before it by the Sindh AG and then use it against the petitioner which was violative of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

It was further argued that shifting of trial will entail inconvenience and extra expense to the defence as they had engaged their counsel to appear in Karachi. This, the petitioner argued, would amount to a breach of Fundamental Rights granted to the petitioners in Article 10 of the Constitution.