Karachi: Pakistan's Sindh province government on Thursday extended for another three months the custody of British-born al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides whose sentences in the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 were overturned in April.
The move came days after the Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by the Sindh government to suspend a high court verdict that overturned the conviction of the four men.
The court, however, allowed the province to take measures to keep them in custody. Their detention expired on July 1.
Officials said that the Sindh government extended their custody for another 90 days.
The Superintendent of Karachi Central Prison Hasan Sehtoo said that the accused would stay behind the bars until September 30.
Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the alleged links between the country's powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.
PTI
