The four men acquitted in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Peal in Pakistan have been rearrested and will remain in custody pending prosecutors appealing the ruling in the country’s Supreme Court, announced Pakistan’s interior ministry on Friday.
Three were handed life sentences, and a fourth, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was awaiting execution. The Karachi court last week reduced Sheikh’s sentence to seven years for kidnapping following the hearing of an appeal last month.
Following worldwide outrage to the overturning of the convictions, the four have been rearrested and will remain behind bars “for a period of three months pending filing of the appeal,” said the interior ministry.
The statement emphasized the government’s “commitment to follow due process under the laws of the country to bring terrorists to task.”