KARACHI, July 19: Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, who was awarded death penalty by an Ant-Terrorism Court in the Daniel Pearl case, on Friday challenged the verdict, claiming his total innocence.

His counsel, Abdul Waheed Katpar, filed an appeal in the Sindh High Court praying for setting aside the impugned judgment and hearing of the appeal at Karachi.

On July 15, the special judge at Hyderabad had awarded death penalty to Omer, whereas his three accomplices — Fahad Nasim, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Mohammmad Adil — were given life term. Their appeal against life term was filed by Rai Bashir on Thursday, just a day after Advocate-General Sindh, Raja Qureshi, had filed state’s appeal for the enhancement of their sentence i.e., from life to death.

Mr Katpar has taken a position that the impugned “judgment is against law and facts” and therefore should be set aside.

It was his contention that “the judgment is violative of the basic provisions of Qanoon-i-Shahadat” and was based upon “conjectures and surmises”.

In his appeal, the defence counsel says the prosecution’s evidence failed to establish the commission of any offence under sections 365-A, 120-A and 302 of PPC and section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Hence, the conviction was contrary to law and facts.

It was claimed by the appellant that reliance was placed on “fake, false and provenly planted evidence, therefore, the judgment cannot be sustained”.

Another counsel, Mohsin Imam, who met Omer in Hyderabad prison for getting the vakaltnama signed, said despite the harsh judgment Omer was “calm and determined” and hopeful that the Sindh High Court which has a tradition of taking bold decisions would give him the relief.

He said that Omer also saw the memorandum of appeal and added he was “not very vocal but definitely very firm and determined.