Strike Causes Pearl Trial Delay

Presiding Judge Abdul Ghafoor Memon Thursday suspended the trial of Muslim militants charged in the kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl because defense attorneys observed a one-day lawyers' strike, the chief prosecutor said.

The strike, to protest Gen. Pervez Musharraf's national referendum to extend his presidency by five years, led to the arrest in Karachi of 50 lawyers who joined in a rally to declare the April 30 vote unconstitutional and illegal, said Iftikhar Javed, president of the Karachi Bar Council, the local lawyers' association.

The government has banned all rallies prior to the referendum.

"Go, Musharraf, go!" read one banner at the rally. "We will not accept military rule," said another.

Chief prosecutor Raja Quereshi said he had five witnesses ready to testify at the trial, but that they would have to wait until proceedings resume on Friday. He did not disclose who the witnesses were.

Outside the makeshift courtroom where the trial has been held since Monday, Quereshi said he petitioned the provincial high court Thursday morning to take the case away from Judge Memon on grounds he was unable to keep the defendants under control.

"The accused are acting in an intimidating, abusive manner and are beyond the control of the presiding judge," said Quereshi, who complained after Wednesday's session that he felt his life was in danger because of threatening gestures from defendants.

Quereshi said he asked the high court to move the trial to a new court. The high court is to resume a hearing on the petition Friday morning, he said.

Memon is the second judge in the trial. He replaced Arshad Noor Khan as the trial judge because Khan had been present at a preliminary hearing when chief defendant, British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, admitting his role in the Jan. 23 kidnapping.

Saeed and the three other defendants have since then pleaded innocent to charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism. They face the death penalty if convicted.

The defendants, who had been reprimanded by Memon for outbursts on the first two days of the trial, sat quietly Wednesday.

However, Quereshi said they threatened him with silent gestures. Defense lawyer Khawaja Naveed said the defendants denied they were making threatening motions.

Naveed confirmed that he had stayed away from the proceedings Thursday because of the call from the Pakistan Bar Council, the national lawyers' association, to observe the strike.

Reporters are barred from attending the trial, but lawyers are allowed to brief them outside the courtroom.

Saeed has been identified in connection with Pearl by two key witnesses so far in the trial, the taxi driver who took Pearl to a Jan. 23 rendezvous for a meeting with Muslim militants and by a Pakistani journalist who helped set up the meeting.

Pearl, who was the newspaper's South Asia correspondent, disappeared while researching links between Pakistani militants and Richard C. Reid, the man arrested in December on a Paris-Miami flight with explosives in his shoes.

A previously unknown group called the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty sent e-mails a few days after the kidnapping showing pictures of Pearl in captivity.

U.S. investigators traced the e-mails to another defendant, Fahad Naseem, who in turn identified Saeed as the mastermind, police said.

A videotape received Feb. 21 by U.S. diplomats in Pakistan confirmed Pearl, 38, was dead. His body has not been found.

Saeed, 28, who also is accused of sending Pearl e-mails signed Chaudry Bashir, has been indicted in the Pearl case by a U.S. federal grand jury in New Jersey, but Musharraf, who has allied himself with the U.S.-led coalition in the war on terrorism in neighboring Afghanistan, has said his government would not only prosecute Saeed but also punish him.

Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, called the referendum to secure his position ahead of October elections for a new parliament, which under the constitution is supposed to select a president and prime minister.