Posted on 04/21/2002 3:34:40 AM PDT by kattracks
NEW DELHI: The trial of Omar Sheikh, alleged mastermind of slain US reporter Daniel Pearl's kidnapping, in the port town of Karachi on Monday was being awaited with bated breath especially after media reports in Pakistan quoted the British-born Pakistani militant as saying that his statement in the court would shake everyone.
Terming the trial as one of the most important cases in the country's history, noted Pakistani weekly The Friday Times said though it was not clear whether Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh would plead guilty before the court, prison officials had overheard him telling his father that he was not "scared of dying and will not lie."
"My statement in the court will shake everyone except the people of this country who love us," Sheikh was quoted by a jail official as saying.
The weekly, quoting reliable sources, said that the provincial government was seriously considering holding the trial in-camera before Sheikh's statement, but a decision in this respect was still awaited.
The two other accused, a former cop, Sheikh Adil and Salman Saquib, fully backed Sheikh and the latter had even blasted the Pakistani intelligence agencies.
The court will have to also record the statement of Marianne Pearl, who is presently in the advanced stage of pregnancy at Paris and it was likely that the court will go to her as "she is the complainant and her statement is most important," the weekly quoted prosecutor Raja Qureshi as saying.
"I slit his throat because he was Jewish?"
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