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Biden Fails a Death Penalty Abolitionist’s Most Important Test

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The mystery of Joe Biden’s views about capital punishment has finally been solved. His decision to grant clemency to 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shows the depth of his opposition to the death penalty. And his decision to leave three of America’s most notorious killers to be executed by a future administration shows the limits of his abolitionist commitment. The three men excluded from Biden’s mass clemency—Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers—would no doubt pose a severe test of anyone’s resolve to end the death penalty. Biden failed that test.
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Pakistan court frees Islamist convicted of beheading U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl

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KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of an Islamist convicted of beheading U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, a decision that has left his family in "complete shock", lawyers said.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was the main suspect in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl, was acquitted by a panel of three judges.

"By a majority of two to one, they have acquitted all the accused persons and ordered their release," a provincial advocate general, Salman Talibuddin, told Reuters.

Pearl, 38, was investigating Islamist militants in Karachi after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States when he was kidnapped.

His case grabbed headlines globally after a video of his beheading emerged weeks after he was abducted.

Sheikh and his co-accused are to be released immediately if they aren't required in any other case, the head of the court panel, Justice Mushir Alam, said in a short court order.

A high court last year commuted the death penalty of the British-born Sheikh into a life sentence and acquitted his three co-accused, citing lack of evidence.

The government and Pearl's parents challenged that decision and pleaded to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death penalty.

The Supreme Court turned down both pleas on Thursday.

The United States had said that it may seek to try Sheikh if efforts to keep him in prison failed.

The Pearl family was in "complete shock", the family's lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi, told Reuters, adding that the court decision was a travesty of justice.

"No amount of injustice will defeat our resolve to fight for justice for Daniel Pearl," he said.

Source: swissinfo.ch, Syed Raza Hassan and Asif Shahzad, January 28, 2021


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Pakistan
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