Authorities are scrambling to manage the fallout from a decision by the Supreme Court to free the Pakistani-British man accused in the 2002 beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

The Sindh government on Friday filed a review petition, asking the apex court to revisit its decision.

But even the lawyer for the Pearl family has said a review petition has a slim chance of succeeding because it is heard by the same judges who voted to free Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh. The case appears to have fallen apart because of the contradictory evidence produced during Sheikh’s original trial in 2002 and the decision by the prosecution at the time to try him and three other accused co-conspirators together. According to the Pearl family lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi, this means that doubt about the guilt of one translates into a doubt about all.

Washington has expressed outrage, promising to pursue extradition of Sheikh on two separate US indictments against him. For its part, the Sindh government has thrown up every legal hurdle it could to keep Sheikh in jail following his acquittal last April by the Sindh High Court (SHC).

What legal options remain for the government?

The Sindh government has taken the last remaining legal step by filing a review petition on Friday with the SC. It’s unlikely to change the outcome, but it could give the provincial government legal cover to keep Sheikh in jail in Karachi.

Defying the SC order to free Sheikh could again leave the Sindh government facing contempt charges. It already defended itself against earlier charges of contempt for previously refusing to release him, ignoring an order from a lower court.

Authorities also might consider charging him in connection with allegations that he possessed nine different SIM cards for phones he used to contact friends, including some in Britain, in 2009 while on death row. There have been suggestions in the media that he used the SIM cards to call for assistance to break him out of the Hyderabad jail where he’d been on death row since his 2002 conviction. He was moved to a Karachi jail after his April acquittal.

What options are open for the US?

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Washington was ready to extradite Sheikh to answer two indictments against him in US courts — one for his involvement in the beheading of Pearl and the other for his involvement in the kidnapping of an American in Indian-occupied Kashmir in 1994, alongside three British tourists. All four were eventually freed unhurt.

There are a couple of hurdles to extradition: Pakistan, like the United States, has a double jeopardy rule that prevents a person from being tried for the same offence twice. The US also does not have an extradition treaty with Pakistan, although Islamabad has in the past bypassed legalities to send suspects to the US, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mohammed has been in US custody on Guantanamo Bay since his arrest in Pakistan in March 2003. He also confessed that he killed Pearl himself, but has not been charged in the Wall Street Journal reporter’s death. The most recent example of Pakistan allowing someone accused of a crime to leave for the US was in 2011, when Raymond Davis, an American contractor at the US Embassy, returned home after gunning down two people in Lahore. He said he opened fire because he felt threatened.

How might this case impact US-Pakistan relations?

The case could be one of the first major tests for President Joe Biden and US-Pakistan relations have historically been tumultuous. Pakistan likely will play a crucial role in the Biden administration’s attempts to navigate the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pakistan was seen as key to getting the Taliban into negotiations with the Kabul government, even if those talks have been excruciatingly slow and until now have garnered little success, even as violence has spiked.

Mohammad Amir Rana, executive director of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, said Sheikh’s acquittal has created a conundrum for both countries. Until now, Pakistan has taken every legal step to keep Sheikh in jail but sending him to America could rile up opposition at home, Rana explained. For the US, snubbing Pakistan just when the two have agreed on exchanging intelligence on terror financing and the road to a political settlement in Afghanistan is at a critical juncture, could result in setbacks on both fronts.

Who is Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh?

A British national of Pakistani heritage, Sheikh lived a relatively privileged life in Britain, where he attended the prestigious London School of Economics. It appears he was inspired to jihad by the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, relentless attacks on Muslims in Bosnia at the time, their treatment in Bosnian Serb camps and what Sheikh perceived as Western indifference to their plight.

He travelled to Bosnia and later joined Harakat-ul-Ansar, a Pakistan-based militant group that was declared a terrorist group by the US in 1997 and later became known as Harakat-ul-Mujahideen. He also travelled to Indian-occupied Kashmir to wage war against India in the Muslim-majority region.

Sheikh’s strength seemed to be his ability to use his British upbringing to entice foreigners to trust him. That ability led to the kidnapping of the American tourist in 1994, and according to some evidence, eased any concerns Pearl might have had as he sought to track militants in Pakistan.

Sheikh was arrested by India after the 1994 kidnappings but was among terror suspects freed by India on December 31, 1999, in exchange for the hostages on an Indian Airlines aircraft that was hijacked and taken from Nepal to the then Taliban-controlled Afghan city of Kandahar.

Header image: Police surround a handcuffed Omar Sheikh as he comes out of a court in Karachi in this photo taken on March 29, 2002. — AFP