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Pearl killing was part of a wider plot: Omar Sheikh

ISLAMABAD, FEB. 23. 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 on Friday.

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 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, Pearl's dismembered head was shown, said the officials, who spoke on condition that their nationalities not be specified.

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 Sheikh, 28, about the timing of Pearl's death and a parallel plot to attack the American Consulate in Karachi have not been corroborated, the officials added.

The journalist had informed the FBI 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 Pearl's killers, the Pakistan 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 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 the Al-Qaeda.''

Still, the police in Karachi and across Pakistan were apparently unsuccessful in their efforts to find 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 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 Sheikh had told his American and Pakistani interrogators that his only regret was that he had not been able to carry out that attack.

Fahad Naseem, another suspect who is being held in the case, said before a Karachi Magistrate on Thursday that 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 Pearl saying into the camera, ``I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew.''

The videotape contained no clues about when the killing of Pearl took place, the officials said. But they said its gruesome images seemed to match what Sheikh had told investigators about a conversation he said took place eight days after Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, on Jan. 23.

``When I contacted my associates from Lahore on February 1, they said: `Dad is already dead. We have done the scan and completed the X-rays and post-mortem,''' the officials quoted Sheikh as having told interrogators, using a code name for 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.

Sheikh left Karachi on Jan. 28, which could put the date of killing at between Jan. 29 and Jan. 31, the officials said. Between February 1 and February 12, when he surrendered to the authorities in Lahore, 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.

Ms. Chamberlin returned to Pakistan only this morning from Washington, where she helped to coordinate Gen. Musharraf's visit earlier this month. She described the investigation as ``going at full throttle,'' but would say of 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 the U.S. President, George W. Bush, spoke via telephone today with Gen. Musharraf, who offered his condolences for Pearl's death.

Officials familiar with Sheikh's interrogation said he had seemed unafraid of the consequences of his action. At one point, they said, he told FBI officials in perfect English that he cared only as much for Pearl's pregnant wife, Ms. Mariane, as the Americans had cared for their pregnant victims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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 Gen. Musharraf's Government of acting as a tool of the U.S.

Activists of the Jaish-e-Mohammad and other banned groups have denied any involvement in the killing. A spokesman for the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam 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.

- New York Times

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