Islamic kidnappers send note via e-mail
FROM ZAHID HUSSAIN IN ISLAMABAD
ISLAMIC militants holding an American journalist captive have issued photographs of their manacled hostage with a gun to his head along with a series of ransom demands in an e-mail attachment.
Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, disappeared last week while researching a story on the “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid. He is believed to have been lured into a trap by the kidnappers, who set up a meeting in Karachi in e-mails sent from cyber cafes.
The kidnappers, calling themselves the National Movement for Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, claimed on Sunday that they were keeping Mr Pearl, 38, in “inhumane” conditions to match those in which al-Qaeda suspects were being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Pakistani investigators said that the photographs were genuine, but the kidnappers had used a fictitious name. A police official said, however, that there was strong evidence indicating the involvement of Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, an outlawed Islamic group linked with the Taleban and al-Qaeda. Several of the group’s members were killed when the group’s Kabul headquarters was bombed by US jets.
Yesterday the FBI joined the search for Mr Pearl, whose wife is five months’ pregnant, as Pakistani police said they had no idea where he was.
His captors sent their ransom e-mail to several newspapers, but not to the Wall Street Journal. Steven Goldstein, a Dow Jones vice-president who is acting as the newspaper’s spokesman, said: “We have had no contact with anyone holding Danny.”
The group demanded that Pakistani nationals held by the US Government be allowed access to their lawyers and families, that Abdul Salam Zaeef, Afghanistan’s former Ambassador to Pakistan, be handed to Pakistan, and the release of F16 fighter jets purchased by Pakistan in the 1980s which were never delivered. “If the Americans keep our countrymen in better conditions then we will better the conditions of Mr Pearl and all other Americans that we capture,” the group said. |
