The Pakistan connection and the US silence over an execution

[dArKeR]

By Michael Meacher
THE GUARDIAN , London
Tuesday, Jul 27, 2004,Page 9

Omar Shiekh, a British-born Islamist militant, is waiting to be hanged in Pakistan for a murder he almost certainly didn't commit -- of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Both the US government and Pearl's wife have since acknowledged that Sheikh was not responsible. Yet the Pakistani government is refusing to try other suspects newly implicated in Pearl's kidnap and murder for fear the evidence they produce in court might acquit Sheikh and reveal too much.

Significantly, Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired US$100,000 before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on this count. Why not?

Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on Sept. 11, and had a series of pre-Sept. 11, top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/07/27/2003180668


Musharraf's coup

Monday June 25, 2001
The Guardian

In perpetrating a second coup against democracy, General Pervez Musharraf may have strengthened his own position but he has done Pakistan no favours. Gen Musharraf's decision to elevate himself from "chief executive", the title he assumed after the 1999 military takeover, to president, had been predicted. But that does not make it any more acceptable. And the timing was inept, coming as his foreign minister, Abdul Sattar, was in Washington trying to persuade a sceptical US administration to show more understanding of his country's problems.

Mr Sattar, who seems to have been badly caught out by the presidential putsch, conducted a similar exercise in London the previous week. Any progress he may have made has now been wrecked by the general's action, which brought sharp rebukes from the US State Department and the Foreign Office. Any chance that Washington would relax its sanctions has been blown, while the Commonwealth must decide whether to expel Pakistan when it meets later this year.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,511917,00.html

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COUP IN PAKISTAN

JIM LEHRER: That military coup in Pakistan: We start with a report from Robert Moore of Independent Television News filed earlier today.

ROBERT MOORE: No pictures have emerged from Pakistan since news of the military coup first broke, but the latest reports suggest that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is under house arrest. There have been no official announcements from the civilian or from the military leadership tonight, and the television stations have been taken off the air.

SPOKESPERSON: The meeting dispelled the impression...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec99/pakistan_10-12.html

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A beleaguered Pakistan military regime faces mounting criticism

By Vilani Peiris
21 November 2000

Use this version to print

Last month marked one year since General Pervez Musharraf ousted the elected Pakistani government, arrested prime minister Nawaz Sharif and installed his own military regime. Accusing the previous government of corruption and ruining the economy, Musharraf promised to bring economic progress and political stability, eradicate poverty, build investor confidence and restore democracy as quickly as possible.

Twelve months later none of these promises have been fulfilled. The economy is still on a knife-edge and there is growing popular discontent with falling living standards and the lack of basic democratic rights. The regime is under fire not only from the political opposition but also from its supporters in the ruling elites including among the military top brass.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/pak-n21.shtml


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The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll: General Pervez Musharraf
http://www.pakistan-facts.com/staticpages/index.php/20021121101525217