Pakistani security tight as judge mulls Pearl trial verdict

HYDERABAD, Pakistan -- Police and soldiers searched vehicles and patrolled the streets in armored personnel carriers Sunday, a day before the expected verdict in the trial of four Islamic militants accused of the kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.\nJudge Ali Ashrar Shah said he would announce his verdict in the three-month trial Monday and scheduled a hearing in the temporary courtroom in this city's heavily guarded jail.\nThe prosecution has demanded the death penalty for British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, alleged mastermind of the kidnapping, and three others. Seven suspects remain at large.\nThe trial has fanned the anger of Islamic militants against Pakistan's government, which many militants feel betrayed them by abandoning the Afghan Taliban and supporting the United States after Sept. 11.\nWestern diplomats and some Pakistani observers fear the kidnap-slaying of the 38-year-old journalist was the first shot in a war between Islamic extremists and this country's Western-backed government.\nPakistani newspapers Saturday received an Urdu-language e-mail purportedly from Asif Ramzi, one of those sought in the Pearl case, threatening more attacks against foreigners.\nPearl disappeared in Karachi on Jan. 23 while researching Pakistani's Islamic extremist movement, including possible links to Richard C. Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight between Paris and Miami with explosives in his shoes.\nE-mails received a few days later by Pakistani and Western news organizations from the previously unknown National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty showed Pearl in captivity and demanded better treatment for Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.\nThe first e-mail called Pearl a CIA agent; a second claimed he was working for the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad. Pearl's family denied both allegations. A videotape received by U.S. diplomats in February confirmed Pearl was dead.\nSaeed and his co-defendants denied involvement in the kidnapping and accused the government of fabricating the case to appease American anger. Saeed admitted a role in the kidnapping during his initial court appearance Feb. 14 but later recanted. The statement was not made under oath and was inadmissible.\nSaeed was believed to have links with some of the country's most violent Islamic extremist groups. The trial began April 22 in Karachi but was moved to Hyderabad, about 60 miles away, after prosecutors said they were receiving death threats.\nOn the six-lane highway between Karachi and Hyderabad, graffiti painted in black lettering on concrete barriers proclaimed: "America, your death is coming," and "The war will continue until America is finished."\nFearing a militant backlash to a guilty verdict, off-duty policemen in Karachi and other cities here in Sindh province were called in to work and top police commanders were on 24-hour call, officials said on condition of anonymity.\nIn Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and a center of Islamic militancy, police staged mock explosions Sunday to evaluate their response times and procedures. Police and soldiers staged random vehicle searches in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh province, which includes Hyderabad.\nThroughout Sindh province, police were on "red alert," the highest level before a state of emergency is declared. Officers were told to be "extraordinarily vigilant," if the suspects were convicted, Karachi police commander Syed Kamal Shah said.\nProsecutors alleged that Saeed, a former student at the London School of Economics, lured Pearl to a Karachi restaurant with the promise of a meeting with an Islamic cleric, who has been cleared of any involvement in the kidnapping.\nThe prosecution relied heavily on technical evidence provided by the FBI, which traced the e-mails to co-defendant Fahad Naseem, who in turn identified Saeed and the others. Naseem said Saeed told him that he intended to grab someone who was "anti-Islam and a Jew," police reported.\nSaeed and the others denied any involvement and claimed the government had coerced confessions and manufactured evidence to appease the Americans. The United States has asked for Saeed's extradition to face U.S. charges in the Pearl case and in the 1994 kidnapping in India of an American, who was freed unharmed.\nThe key prosecution witness, taxi driver Nasir Abbas, testified he saw Pearl get into a car with Saeed in front of a Karachi restaurant on the night the reporter vanished. The defense claimed Abbas was pressured into his statement.