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New Questions Arise Surrounding Fate of American Journalist
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| Pakistani police search for Pearl in a Karachi graveyard |
By Neveen A. Salem
WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The fate of kidnapped American journalist Daniel Pearl remains unknown as conflicting developments surface regarding his possible death.
In the latest of the trail of conflicting emails and phone calls regarding Pearl, AFP announced today that one of its journalists saw a copy of an e-mail early Saturday stating that Pearl was alive and that the email sent to the Wall Street Journal last night saying that he had been executed was “a fake.”
"Pearl is alive and make real efforts to get him out," the cryptic two-paragraph message said. I am sorry. I sent the e-mail in which the deadline of Daniel. Please pardon me! It was a fake mail. It also reveals the fact that the last mail is also a fake mail," the message said in broken, unclear English.
It then added: "The facilitator known as Arif was killed because the group thought it was sent from him."
Late last night, an email was sent to the Wall Street Journal, allegedly by the still anonymous kidnappers, stating that Pearl had been executed.
“We have killed Mr. Danny. Now let Mr. Bush look for his body in the graveyards of Karachi. We have thrown him there,” the email read.
However, a telephone call was also made to the U.S. Embassy in Karachi last night extending the deadline for Pearl’s execution by 36 hours. The caller demanded $2 million and the release of former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef, who is now in U.S. custody.
Pearl, 38, disappeared in this southern port city on January 23 after telling his wife he was going to interview the leader of an obscure Islamic organization. The journalist, who has broad journalistic ties in Pakistan, was also believed to have been investigating Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who last month allegedly set out to blow up a U.S. plane using explosives hidden in his shoes.
The Wall Street Journal told IslamOnline today that they believed both the e-mail sent to them and the phone call were hoaxes. “We have seen the latest reports and we remain hopeful that they are not true.”
The e-mail sent to the paper last night was sent from a different e-mail address than the previous e-mails sent by the kidnappers. In addition, unlike previous authentic emails, this one contained no photographs of Pearl.
U.S. President George W. Bush told IslamOnline during yesterday’s Oval Office meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah that the U.S. would “follow the trail of e-mails sent for the sole purpose of finding this man, saving him and rescuing him.”
However, Kamran Khan, a Pakistani journalist in Karachi, said today that he does not doubt that Pearl might in fact be dead. “Indeed they [the kidnappers] are vicious people, dangerous people and for them killing someone means nothing at all,” he said.
Pakistani officials say they have searched roughly 300 of Karachi’s 800 prisons but have not yet found any evidence of Pearl.
Pakistani officials also support that the emails announcing his death are not authentic, saying the words in the newest emails were spelled wrong, and that the writing style was different.
The U.S. maintains its policy of not “giving in to kidnappers,” relayed former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who is Munich, Germany for the 38th Security Conference.
“It is the tendency of the kidnappers to put the family [of the victim] on edge.
“But we cannot give in to any ransom demands because then another journalist will be kidnapped, be it American or Western, and the price [ransom] will go up the next day.”
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