Posted on 01/27/2002 9:05:39 PM PST by Pericles
January 28, 2002
American Reporter Held Captive in Pakistan, a Message Says
An e-mail message sent to news organizations Sunday stated that Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, had been kidnapped in Pakistan. Photographs with the message show, top to bottom, Mr. Pearl with a gun to his head, in shackles and with Thursday's issue of a Pakistani newspaper.
By ERIK ECKHOLM with FELICITY BARRINGER
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 27 — Daniel Pearl, a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, according to an e-mail message sent today to news organizations. The message accuses Mr. Pearl of being a C.I.A. agent and sets several conditions for his release.
Among the conditions are demands for the repatriation of Pakistani prisoners taken from Afghanistan to Cuba and for the release of the F-16 fighter jets that Pakistan bought from the United States in the 1980's. The fighter jets were not delivered after Congress in 1990 cut off aid and military sales to Pakistan in response to the country's moves to develop nuclear weapons.
Two of the pictures sent with the e- mail message show Mr. Pearl in wrist and ankle shackles. In one, a gun is pointed at his head. Another shows a Thursday issue of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
The e-mail message arrived early today at various in-boxes at The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and at news organizations in Pakistan. It was sent under the name "kidnapperguy" via Hotmail, Microsoft's free e-mail service.
Both Journal executives and the Central Intelligence Agency issued statements denying that Mr. Pearl, 38, had any past or present relationship with the agency. The Journal statement said, in part, "Mr. Pearl, as are all Wall Street Journal reporters, is solely a journalist and has written regularly on a variety of subjects during his 12 years on our staff."
Mr. Pearl, who had been doing research on Richard C. Reid, the shoe-bomb suspect, has been missing since Wednesday afternoon. His wife, Mariane, who is pregnant, told the local police that Mr. Pearl was on his way to interview a leader of a local splinter group of the Army of Muhammad, a banned Islamic militant organization.
Pakistani law enforcement officials said today that Mr. Pearl left for the appointment without his translator or local assistant. They believe this meant that he was contacted by someone who spoke English and told him to come alone.
A taxi driver who told police that he left Mr. Pearl at the Metropole Hotel is the last person known to have seen him.
Steven Goldstein, a spokesman for The Journal, said tonight that the newspaper's executives were proceeding on the assumption that the photographs were authentic, although no final determination of their validity has been made.
And a senior State Department official in Washington raised the possibility of a hoax, saying today, "At this point we can't evaluate whether it's a hoax or real. I don't think we know how much of this is based on reality."
The four-paragraph e-mail message threatened the kidnapping of other Americans, saying, "If the Americans keep our countrymen in better conditions we will better the conditions of Mr. Pearl and all other Americans that we capture."
The message also demanded that the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, now in United States custody, be returned to Pakistani custody, and that any Pakistani nationals detained in the United States during the domestic anti-terrorism campaign get access to lawyers and to their families.
A Justice Department spokesman in Washington said today that 177 Pakistanis were among the 460 people currently detained in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials would not confirm whether any were among the captives at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Dan Nelson, the Justice Department spokesman, added, "They have a right to counsel, to contact the consulates from their country of origin, and we provide them with access to telephones."
The e-mail message began, "The National movement for the restoration of Pakistani sovereignty has captured C.I.A. officer Daniel Pearl who has posing as a journalist of the Wall Street Journal."
The English-language text of the e- mail message noted that Mr. Pearl was being held "in very inhuman circumstances quite similar infact to the way that Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American Army."
Text in Urdu attached to the e-mail message and translated by The New York Times began, "A national movement to restore the dignity of Pakistan has been launched."
The demand related to the F-16's was made only in the Urdu text. Both the English and Urdu texts avoid the references commonly used by militant Islamic groups in Pakistan, most notably the mention of God.
Mr. Pearl has worked for The Journal since 1990, based in Atlanta, Washington and Paris and, for the last two years, Bombay.
He was kidnapped by morons.
This would'nt have (didn't) happend to Whorealdo by golly he had a pistola and them nifty rose colored glasses and and and a Cowboy hat with a bandana !! !
If this is real I sure hope the guy gets out but my guess is that he's toast if they do have him........
Stay Safe !
Well, it looks like Bill Gates is getting desperate to get some free publicity for Microsoft :)
Maybe we should send Tourist Guy over there?
In first picture, you see some kind of metal under his right knee; and in second picture you seen chain down around his foot; coming out from beneath his pants. . .in third picture; maybe his leg irons are in place. . .who knows?
Whatever, the situation looks horrible; but predictable from the standpoint of our taking 'these people' as prisoners. . .and it is only the beginning. . .
We should just have a policy of 'take NO prisoners'. . .whatEVER that takes. . .
. . .do think he is signalling, best he can, with his hands/finger. . .middle photo. . .but 'maybe not'. . .better leave that one alone; could cause trouble for him.
Agree, this was not the smartest response; and in fact could possibly cause this reporter more harm. . .I remember the Getty kidnapping. . .
. . .we do not need to be baiting these fanatics and challenging them to do better, smarter job. . .
When we were in southern Russia in 1997 we had an armed guard for a driver, something that had never happened for our first two adoptions. Also they put us to live with a Russian general.We had taken our 7 year old son with us on that trip. Chechen kidnappings were booming. I thank God for the wise people who made sure we were protected on that trip.
This man is most likely in deep doo-doo. We still have not rescued the Americans in the Phillipines. We need a lot of prayer for our country and our people.
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