Al Girardi, a defence attorney who specialises in internet and telecoms privacy, sees this, along with the Jones case, as a "watershed" moment.

BBC: How much privacy can smartphone owners expect?

According to a defence attorney Khawaja Naveed, the two officers said Omar Sheikh had said he had masterminded Mr Pearl's abduction, that he would not defend himself and that Mr Pearl was dead.

BBC: New evidence in Pearl case hearings

Defence attorney Ulrich Sieber said Mr Somm, who was head of CompuServe's German subsidiary, had no technical means of blocking such sites, but still managed to get the US parent company to do so several times.

BBC: News | Europe | Ex-CompuServe boss acquitted

Priyath Liyanage of the BBC's Sinhala service says the handing of the defence post to Tilak Marapone, a former attorney general and not a military man may indicate the new government's willingness to take a non-aggressive approach towards the ethnic problem which has ruined the economy.

BBC: Sri Lanka cabinet finally sworn in