A lawyer for British-born Islamic extremist Sheikh Omar, charged with the kidnap and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl, filed a petition Wednesday requesting his trial judge be changed.

Two days before the trial is due to begin in this southern city, Omar's lawyer moved an application in the High Court complaining that Judge Arshad Noor Khan was not competent to try the case.

Lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar said Khan should not have been appointed to conduct the trial because he had already presided at an earlier hearing in which Omar confessed to kidnapping the Wall Street Journal reporter.