Off topic -- more (upsetting) Daniel Pearl murder details.
February 23, 2002
Suspect Says Reporter Was Slain in January as Part of Wider Plot
By DOUGLAS JEHL
SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 22 — The chief
suspect in the Daniel Pearl case has told
investigators that the captive Wall Street Journal
reporter was killed in late January as part of a plot that
was to have included an attack on the United States
Consulate in Karachi, intelligence and law enforcement
officials said today.
The claims by the suspect, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a
British-born militant now in Pakistani custody, are
among the clues being weighed by the American and
Pakistani authorities still pursuing others thought to
have been involved in the killing, a gruesome
beheading recorded on a three- minute, 50-second
digital videotape made available to American
investigators in Karachi late on Thursday.
Intelligence and law enforcement officials who have viewed the tape said it showed Mr. Pearl, full face and in
conversation until the hands of unknown assailants intruded into the picture to pull his head back by the hair and to
slit his throat. Later in the tape, Mr. Pearl's dismembered head was shown, said the officials, who spoke on
condition that their nationalities not be specified.
Mr. Pearl's wife, Mariane, who is seven months pregnant, issued a statement saying that her husband's killers could
not defeat his spirit and that she would tell their son that his father had worked to end terrorism. "I promise you that
the terrorists did not defeat my husband no matter what they did to him, nor did they succeed in seizing his dignity
or value as a human being," she said.
The claims by Mr. Sheikh, 28, about the timing of Mr. Pearl's death and a parallel
plot to attack the American Consulate in Karachi have not been corroborated, the
intelligence and law enforcement officials said.
The tape of Mr. Pearl, made on a digital video camera, is suspected of being part
of a longer recording that may be stored on a compact disc, with images and
audio recordings of Mr. Pearl in captivity, the officials said.
The videotape was given to representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
in Karachi on Thursday by a Pakistani journalist who covers Islamic militants and
had earlier received word that such a disc might be made available to him.
The journalist had informed the F.B.I. of that communication. But in what some
officials described as a possible blunder, the officials said no effort had been
made to keep track of the informer, making it impossible to trace whoever
provided the tape.
Today, as American officials here praised Pakistan for its aggressive pursuit of
Mr. Pearl's killers, President Pervez Musharraf vowed that the killing would not
deter him and his government "from acting with all their strength against
terrorists and in fighting this menace together with the international community,"
a government statement said.
The American ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, said in an interview
that the prospect that at least one of the suspects in the killing might at some
point be handed over to the United States would be among "the kinds of issues to
be resolved as we proceed in the case."
Until Mr. Pearl's death was confirmed, Pakistani officials were reluctant to
consider such a possibility. But today, senior Pakistani officials said the fact of
the killing had made it increasingly likely that they might at some point agree to a
handover.
American and Pakistani officials have been working closely together in the case,
and Ms. Chamberlin said the partnership had yielded "about as good law
enforcement to law enforcement cooperation as I've seen anywhere in the world,
on this case and in other terrorist-related cases, related to Al Qaeda."
Still, the police in Karachi and across Pakistan were apparently unsuccessful in
their efforts to find Mr. Pearl's body, and there was no immediate sign that the videotape of the killing provided
clues that might lead to the capture of other suspects.
In providing an account of Mr. Sheikh's statements while in custody, law enforcement and intelligence officials said
he had been aggressive, unapologetic and taunting.
"Now, that would have been spectacular, wouldn't it!" the officials quoted him as saying of the reported plot against
the consulate. They said Mr. Sheikh had told his American and Pakistani interrogators that his only regret was that
he had not been able to carry out that attack.
Another suspect who is being held in the case, Fahad Naseem, said before a Karachi magistrate on Thursday that
Mr. Sheikh told him two days before the kidnapping that he was going to seize someone who is "anti-Islam and a
Jew."
An official close to the investigation told The Associated Press that the video showed Mr. Pearl saying into the
camera, "I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew."
The videotape contained no clues about when the killing of Mr. Pearl took place, the officials said. But they said its
gruesome images seemed to match what Mr. Sheikh had told investigators about a conversation he said took place
eight days after Mr. Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, on Jan. 23.
"When I contacted my associates from Lahore on Feb. 1, they said: `Dad is already dead. We have done the scan
and completed the X-rays and post-mortem,' " the officials quoted Mr. Sheikh as having told interrogators, using a
code name for Mr. Pearl. The officials said they now interpreted the references to the scan and X-rays as a
reference to filming the event and post-mortem as a suggestion that the body had been disposed of.
Mr. Sheikh left Karachi on Jan. 28, which could put the date of killing at between Jan. 29 and Jan. 31, the officials
said.
Between Feb. 1 and Feb. 12, when he surrendered to the authorities in Lahore, Mr. Sheikh pretended to negotiate
with intelligence officials who were acting as intermediaries, a tactic that Pakistani officials now interpret as a ruse
aimed at allowing his accomplices to wipe out their tracks.
"The case has now become even harder to crack," a Pakistani intelligence official said today. While three other
suspects besides Mr. Sheikh are now in Pakistani custody, the official said investigators were exploring at least a
half-dozen other possible links to the kidnapping.
Ambassador Chamberlin returned to Pakistan only this morning from Washington, where she helped to coordinate
General Musharraf's visit earlier this month. She described the investigation as "going at full throttle," but would say
of Mr. Sheikh's role only that "he certainly seems to be involved, but I think a full characterization of this hidden
plot will only be revealed at the conclusion."
The ambassador said President Bush spoke by telephone today with General Musharraf, who offered his
condolences for Mr. Pearl's death.
Mr. Sheikh, who attended the London School of Economics, is thought to be a leader of Jaish-e-Muhammad, or
Army of Muhammad, a militant Islamic group that General Musharraf banned last month, as part of his crackdown
on extremist groups. Mr. Sheikh spent five years in an Indian prison, on charges linked to the 1994 kidnapping of
Westerners, and was freed into Afghanistan in a 1999 hostage-prisoner swap.
Officials familiar with Mr. Sheikh's interrogation said he had seemed unafraid of the consequences of his action. At
one point, they said, he told F.B.I. officials in perfect English that he cared only as much for Mr. Pearl's pregnant
wife, Mariane, as the Americans had cared for their pregnant victims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Sheikh has been the focus of discussions between Pakistani and American officials about a possible extradition,
officials of both governments say. Such a step would require not only that Pakistan agree, but also that he first be
indicted in the United States; American officials say an indictment is already being weighed.
Pakistani officials have said they would weigh a request for extradition against all factors, including the possibility of
domestic repercussion from Islamic groups that have already accused General Musharraf's government of acting as
a tool of the United States. The officials say they do not expect the United States to make such a request unless both
sides have first privately agreed that an extradition would advance the cause of the investigation.
Representatives of many Islamic groups in Pakistan joined today in expressing horror at Mr. Pearl's killing. Hamida
Khuhro, a top official of the Pakistan Muslim League, which until General Musharraf took power was Pakistan's
largest political party, issued a statement saying, "we are bowed down in shame."
"This can only be the work of those who are determined to bring both Pakistan and Islam into disrepute and provide
ammunition to those who wish us ill," Dr. Khuhro said.
Officials of Jaish-e-Muhammad and other banned groups have denied any involvement in the killing, and a
spokesman for another radical Islamic party, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, today condemned what it called "this brutal
killing of an innocent man."
But a spokesman for that party, which is not among those that General Musharraf banned, was quoted by Agence
France-Press as putting blame for the killing on Washington's support of Israel against the Palestinians and the
deaths of innocent people in Afghanistan.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company |
