UK urges leniency for Pearl killer

CNN ^ | July 15 2002

[knighthawk]

LONDON, England -- The UK government says it opposes the death sentence handed down to a British-born man convicted in Pakistan for the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Former London School of Economics student Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, believed to be the mastermind of Pearl's kidnapping death, was convicted on Monday along with three other Islamic radicals of kidnapping for ransom and acts of terror, defence lawyers said.

[knighthawk]

Time that the UK kick the socialists out of government! They rather hug Omar than submit him to justice!

[knighthawk]

Eurowinie alert!

[B Knotts]

Don't pretty much all Europeans oppose the death penalty?

[Paul Atreides]

Don't pretty much all Europeans oppose the death penalty?

Except, in the case of babies.

[Dialup Llama]

Mushareff and the judge who risked their lives to conclude this trial and now in total confusion about what the west is up to.

[swarthyguy]

Well, the EU should look to their heritage.

[Dakmar]

And the elderly.

[swarthyguy]

Sounds like a proforma thing for Jackstraw to say to appease the local Muslim votingbloc and the handwringers.

[keri]

I think he should be kept alive and tortured for the truth, and then shot. He and his cronies took orders from someone. I'd like to know who in Pakistan pulled Omar's string.

The trial was a joke. JMO

[spqrzilla9]

Don't pretty much all Europeans oppose the death penalty?

Actually no, many Europeans - a majority in some nations - support the death penalty. But their governments have decided for them.

[dighton]

"In a goodwill gesture to Mr. Straw, the Pakistanis agreed to shorten the condemned man's drop by three feet."

;-)

[Drew68]

Don't pretty much all Europeans oppose the death penalty?

Believe it or not, no. The masses, by and large, support it while the ruling intellectuals oppose it and so it has been banned.

[Orual]

"The Pakistani authorities are already well aware of our position on this issue."

Yes, and the Brits are well aware of the Pakistani position on the "issue". Game, set, match.

[LarryLied]

Been reading a Pakistan military forum and they are delighted with the verdict. Except it doesn't go far enough. One poster wants all the mullahs shot on sight. The attitude is that "casino-addicted" Arabs and Mullahs got themselves into this mess, Pakistan should not have to pay the price. Because of India, they still don't have a favorable view of the USA but they don't like the Omars of the world either.

[tessalu]

Omar needs the same justice that he gave to Daniel Pearl, as swift blow to the neck that will make his head roll.

[swarthyguy]

"Because of India, they still don't have a favorable view of the USA "

They blame India and the US for everything. The friendship was very strong in the Jihad to drive out the Soviets from Afghanistan.

After the Soviets withdrew, the US handed responsibility for Afghanistan to the Pakistanis, who had been conducting the war and choosing which jihadi groups to finance, like the fanatical Hekmatyr(who we just tried to kill) and ignoring true Afghani patriots like Ahamd Shah Massoud.

So the pakistanis come up with a lapdog regime called the Talibuns. Is that the US's fault? NO.

The US gets trashed either way; if it stayed after the Soviets withdrew and tried to put its stamp on Afghanistan, they would have been accused of nation building, empire building and imperialism, colonialism of every hue and stripe.

That the US left the area is now shown as proof of the US's callout neglect.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And the Pakistanis, that could have seized the opportunity to show the world that they are a modern people that could compete with India economically, choose to jihadize their own society and ramp up a proxy war against India in Kashmir.

Now they whine. They really have learnt some nasty habits from the Saudis.

[Macklew]

I agree. There should be leniency for this killer. Give him a good meal before you hang him.

[neutrino]

Thanks for the ping!

Amazing, isn't it, how they won't countenance the killing of a perp...but they'll deprive their citizens of self-defence...exposing those citizens to the risk of being murdered. I guess they regard innocent people as expendable, but murderers as worth keeping alive.

[general_re]

Come with me, back to a different age, an age almost lost in the mists of time, an age when modern ideas had yet to take hold. Come with me, way back to the Dark Age that was...1964, so that we might learn about the last men that the UK saw fit to hang...

1964 - how...medieval of them. And then, if you're interested, we'll take a trip way back to 1977 (who remembers such ancient history?) to learn about the last French execution, and recall how the French, the holders of the moral high-ground, were still guillotining folks in the 1970's...

[knighthawk]

Or let some fellow prisoners have a good time with him.