Pearl Defense Wants Case Dismissed

By: Zarar Khan, Associated Press Writer (AP) The case against three defendants in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl should be dismissed because the evidence against them is weak and uncorroborated, their lawyer said Monday.

Lawyer Rai Bashir argued in his final summation that the prosecution presented no eyewitnesses and failed to link his three clients to e-mails allegedly sent by Pearl's kidnappers.

Bashir's clients -- Salman Saqil, Fahad Naseem, and Sheikh Muhammad Adeel -- have been on trial since April along with principal defendant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is being represented separately.

Pearl, the Journal's South Asia bureau chief, disappeared Jan. 23 in the southern city of Karachi while investigating links between Islamic militants in Pakistan and Richard C. Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes.

Shortly afterward, e-mails with photos of the journalist were sent to foreign and local news publications. They were signed by a previously unknown group demanding better treatment for the suspected Taliban and al-Qaida men being held in Cuba by the United States military.

The FBI traced the e-mails to Naseem, who then identified Saeed as the mastermind, police said.

Naseem and Saqib claimed during the trial that police tortured them into making confessions about the e-mails. Saeed claimed Pakistani authorities were framing him to appease the United States.

Bashir said his final summations will take one more day. Saeed's lawyer finished his summation last week.

Chief prosecutor Raja Qureshi will follow Bashir. After the prosecutor finishes his summation, the judge will then adjourn to consider his verdict, which could take weeks or months.

Reporters are barred from the courtroom during the trial -- taking place under tight security inside a prison -- though lawyers routinely brief journalists waiting outside.

Bashir said he opened his remarks with quotes from the Islamic holy book, the Quran, in an appeal to the court to "keep in mind the divine commandments and do justice to my clients without succumbing to any pressure and fear."

Bashir said the most important prosecution evidence came from taxi driver Nasir Abbas, who told the court he took Pearl to meet Saeed at a Karachi restaurant shortly before his disappearance.

Bashir said no witness had been called to corroborate Abbas' story. The lawyer said that even if Abbas' statements were correct, they did not implicate his clients.

Bashir also challenged testimony by Pakistani police and FBI agents who examined a laptop computer belonging to Naseem.

He said the prosecution failed to prove that the e-mails with Pearl's photos were sent from the laptop. And the serial number on a laptop produced in court was different from the number on police documents identifying the computer from which the e-mails were sent, he said.

"I challenged the prosecution to come up with any e-mail which was sent by the accused persons or sent from Karachi or even sent from Pakistan which has any mention of Daniel Pearl or demands for his release," Bashir said, adding that no satisfactory answer had been given.

Bashir also said statements by the accused appeared to have been tampered with. The statements, recorded before a magistrate who then sealed them, showed different dates when they were produced at the trial, he said.