The United States should suspend aid to Pakistan if the four men convicted of Daniel Pearl’s murder are released.
Pearl was an American Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in 2002 while researching a terrorism story in Pakistan. A video of Pearl’s brutal decapitation at the hands of al Qaeda’s 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was then sent to U.S. authorities. Pearl was then quite literally chopped into pieces and dumped in a shallow grave.
The concern over justice is newly relevant following the Thursday decision by a Pakistani court to release the four convicts. The Sindh High Court in Karachi accepted an appeal that argued the four men are innocent. If the Pakistani government does not appeal the decision, and Pakistan’s Supreme Court does not overrule the lower court, the men will be released, which would be a travesty.
Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil, and Salman Saqib were convicted of involvement in a terrorist conspiracy to murder an American citizen and propagandize his death. Not only that, but these four were just a few of the suspects that Pakistan actually caught.
As Georgetown University’s Pearl Project has documented, it is highly likely that the network of those responsible for the kidnapping and murder included 27 different individuals. A number far larger than the four convicted of it. So as much as in outrage over the Sindh Court’s decision, the U.S. threat over aid should also be motivated by Pakistan’s failure to adequately hold that network to account.
Pakistan’s government, or at least, many elements of it, has always been a reluctant counterterrorism partner. Where we see terrorists who must be confronted, too many Pakistani officials see criminals useful for undermining enemies such as India. Indeed, Ahmad Sheikh was previously convicted of his role in the kidnapping of Western tourists in India in the mid-1990s. Prime Minister Imran Khan poses his own particular challenges here.
But the simple point is that Pakistan must know there will be consequences if these terrorists are freed. While the Trump administration has previously suspended and canceled some aid to Pakistan, it has room to exert far more significant pressure. It should stand ready to do so.
