Washington:Wife of American journalist Daniel Pearl, Mariane, hopes for justice even after the "unjust verdict by the Pakistan Supreme Court of acquitting Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the prime accused in the 2002 abduction and murder of the scribe."
In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, she wrote that before the Pakistani top court's decision of acquitting the terrorist, Pearl's murder had been "disappearing in the dirty corridors of international politics and decades-long conflicts." "My husband's killer could go free in Pakistan. Despite the injustice, I still have hope," she headlined her article.
"Over the years, I have come to distrust man's ability to handle power. I have learned that so-called justice systems often have nothing to do with justice...The geopolitical tug of war over terrorism made it so that my infinitely complex, wholesome Danny boy was reduced to just 'the American,' or 'the journalist' or 'the Westerner'," she wrote.
Recalling the morning after the American journalist was abducted, she said that she did "not know whom to trust." She added that their house (in Pakistan) was full of police and shady agents.
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"I looked for someone who could help me find Danny (nickname for Daniel Pearl). I chose a man standing apart from everybody else, quietly chain-smoking amid the chaos. Five weeks later, we learned Danny was dead. Everyone's pain was thick," her article for The Washington Post read further.
She recalled that when she received the news, she "could not cry. I didn't believe it".
Recalling how people helped her to cope with her husband's death, Pearl wrote, "This is what (the people who helped her) gives me hope in the face of so much injustice... I am convinced that true justice will never come from above."