Live News - A Survival Guide - International Federation of Journalists

Live News — A Survival Guide for JournalistsDaniel Pearl, South Asiacorrespondent for theWall Street Journal, waskidnapped on January 232002 on his way to aninterview at the VillageRestaurant in Karachi,Pakistan. The Wall StreetJournal said that Pearlhad been researching thebackground to RichardReid, ‘the shoe bomber’who had tried to blow upPearl was murdered as heinvestigated backgroundof ‘shoe bomber’Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl waskidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, in2002. It appears that he was offered an interviewthat would link ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid to Al-Qaeda, but was then abducted and accused ofbeing a spy.a transatlantic flight. In February his kidnappers sent officials a videotape showing Pearlbeing killed. His remains were discovered in May 2002 at a building owned by the Al-RashidTrust on the outskirts of the port city of Karachi.Four days after his disappearance, a group calling itself ‘The National Movement for theRestoration of Pakistani Sovereignty’ sent an e-mail to news organisations claimingresponsibility for the kidnap and accusing Pearl of being an American spy. They included aseries of demands, including the repatriation of Pakistani detainees held by the US Army inGuantanamo Bay, Cuba. Another e-mail on January 30 accused Pearl of being a Mossadagent, and said he would be killed within 24 hours unless the group's demands were met.In April 2002, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem, and Shaikh Adilwerecharged with Pearl's kidnapping and murder before Pakistan's special anti-terrorismcourt. After a trial closed to journalists and the public, on July 15 the court found all four menguilty of kidnapping and murder. Saeed, who was accused of masterminding the crime, wassentenced to death by hanging; Saqib, Naseem, and Adil each received 25-year prisonsentences. Their appeal was still pending as this book went to press (January 2003).In August, investigators told the Associated Press that, according to three people held incustody, Pearl was shot and wounded on the sixth day of his capture when he tried to escape,and was murdered on the ninth day. A former US intelligence officer, Robert Baer, told theUnited Press International news agency that he had given Pearl information about Khalid SheikMohammed, whom US intelligence officials have named as head of al-Qaeda's militaryoperations, and believes that the journalist's investigations of Mohammed may have cost himhis life.■Source: Committee to Protect Journalists http://www.cpj.org55