Pearl killer files appeal

Lawyers for Saeed Sheikh are optimistic the appeal will succeed

HYDERABAD, Pakistan -- The British-born Islamic militant sentenced to death for the kidnap-slaying of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl has filed an appeal against his conviction.

Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death by hanging by an anti-terrorism court in Hyderabad on Monday, while three accomplices received life sentences, which in Pakistan usually means 25 years.

Lawyers for Saeed Sheikh -- also known as Omar Saeed -- said they filed the appeal in a provincial court in the southern port city of Karachi against both the ruling and the sentence, claiming the verdict was based upon "Fake, false and provenly planted evidence," The Associated Press news agency reported on Friday.

The appeal was filed within seven days as required by Pakistani law, Saeed's lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar told reporters.

"Two high court judges will hear this appeal, and I am 100 percent confident that justice will be done," he said.

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Lawyers for the three accomplices Sheikh Adil, Fahad Naseem and Salman Saqib have already filed an appeal to the Sindh High Court in Karachi.

The court will not start the appeals process until August 4, the end of its summer recess. It has three options: it could either uphold the guilty verdicts, acquit the men on all charges, or request a new trial because of flaws in the initial trial.

The decision could hinge on the outcome of DNA tests on a body found in May, believed to be Pearl's. Although the court did not have proof that the body was Pearl's, a videotape of the reporter's killing was shown during the trial.

If the provincial court denies the appeals, the men can have their case heard at Pakistan's Supreme Court.

Disappearance

Pearl disappeared in January while researching a story in Karachi about Pakistani militants and suspected shoe bomber Richard Reid.

A few days after Pearl disappeared, the previously unknown National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty announced his kidnapping in e-mails to U.S. and Pakistani news organizations. Photographs of Pearl were attached.

A videotape of the reporter's killing was sent to U.S. officials in February. A body believed to be that of Pearl's was found in May. Police said the identification would be possible after DNA test results are released.

Three of the men were arrested after the FBI and police traced the e-mails to a laptop computer that belonged to one of them, Fahad Naseem.

Naseem confessed and said Saeed Sheikh told him three days before the kidnapping that he planned to abduct someone who is "anti-Islam and a Jew." (Timeline)

Saeed Sheikh was arrested in February in the eastern city of Lahore.

He is currently under indictment by U.S. courts over the kidnapping of American tourists in South Asia.

He was in prison in India until he was released in exchange for hostages during a hijacking of an Air India flight that ended up in Afghanistan New Years Eve 1999.

Saeed Sheikh was reported to have slipped into Pakistan after the hijacking and surfaced when he was arrested and charged with Pearl's kidnapping and murder.

He is said to have had strong links to Muslim fundamentalist groups since he dropped out of the London School of Economics in 1993.