Posted on 02/02/2002 6:47:34 AM PST by boomop1
A new e-mail sent to various newspapers in Pakistan and abroad described as "fake" an earlier e-mail that said kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been executed.
LET'S ROLL
The press is showing such compassion for this fellow journalist in danger - but where was the compassion when the young family man from Enron who they were eager to hound committed suicide?
Schroedinger's Reporter.
Captors: Pearl still alive
By Anwar Iqbal
UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
Published 2/2/2002 9:52 AM
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- A new e-mail sent to various newspapers in Pakistan and abroad described as "fake" an earlier e-mail that said kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been executed.
The new message also said the first e-mail was sent by one of the kidnappers who "has been killed" for doing so. It identified the sender of the earlier e-mail only by his first name, Arif.
"Pearl is (may be) alive, and make real efforts to get him out," it added.
The sender, who did not reveal his identity, admitted writing three earlier e-mails, setting deadlines for the reporter's release.
The first, sent on Wednesday, urged the U.S. government to send Pakistani prisoners at a U.S. Navy camp in Guantanamo Bay to Pakistan "where they should be tried by a Pakistani court and not a U.S. military tribunal" as planned by the Bush administration.
It also demanded that 32 F-16 jets Pakistan had paid for in the early 90s, but never received should be delivered to Pakistan. The delivery was stopped following a dispute over Pakistan's nuclear program.
The first e-mail identified the abductors as a group called the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. Pakistani authorities say they had never heard of the group before.
It set a 24-hour deadline for its demands to be met, failing which, the group said, "Daniel will be killed."
On Thursday it extended the deadline for another 24 hours. But on Friday, media organizations and the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, where Pearl was last seen, received two conflicting messages. One said that Pearl had already been killed while the other demanded $2 million dollars for his release, indicating that he was still alive.
It also added the name of the former Taliban Ambassador in Islamabad, Abdus Salaam Zaeef, among those the group wanted to be sent to Pakistan from Cuba.
Here is the text of the new e-mail: "I am sorry. I sent the email in which the deadline of Daniel. Please pardon me!. It was a fake mail. It also reveals another fact that the last mail is also a fake mail. I had a big burden on my conscience.
"The facilitator namely "Arif" was killed because the group thought it was sent from him. Pls. Don't try to trace this mail. Pearl is (may be) alive and make real efforts to get him out."
The 38-year reporter is the WSJ's bureau chief in Bombay, India, but had moved to Karachi temporarily after the Sept. 11 attacks to report on the U.S.-led war on terrorism. He was kidnapped on Jan. 23 while trying to interview leaders of a fundamentalist group.
The kidnappers said Pearl was being treated inhumanely to protest the conditions of around 150 Taliban and al Qaida prisoners detained by the United States in Cuba.
The man Pearl was trying to meet when he was abducted told Pakistani police that he was not involved in the kidnapping but is said to have given them the names of possible suspects.
Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani heads the Jamaat-ul-Fuqra Muslim group, which, Pearl believed, had ties with Richard Reid, the suspected shoe bomber being held in the United States. Pearl wanted to interview Gilani about Reid.
Gilani, who turned himself in to police on Wednesday, has denied any link with Reid.
Police officials in Karachi told United Press International that they also believe Pearl was still alive. "It does not make sense for the kidnappers to kill him after demanding ransom. They should at least try to get the money," said a senior police officer.
State Department officials told UPI on Friday that they had received an e-mail allegedly from Pearl's kidnappers declaring that he had been executed. But U.S. analysts quickly added they could not yet determine if the e-mail was genuine.
"Clearly this needs to be carefully confirmed," one U.S. official said.
Another State Department official said: "We have a lot of things to sort out," referring to an earlier call made to the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan from someone purporting to be a kidnapper, demanding $2 million and the immediate release of the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.
U.S. officials were working on both messages to determine their authenticity.
"We have no reliable updates as to Pearl's status," a State Department official said.
A statement from Dow Jones and Co., which publishes the WSJ, said, "We have seen the reports, and we remain hopeful they are not true."
President Bush said Friday, "We have some leads," including e-mail sent by the group.
"We are very concerned about The Wall Street Journal reporter," President Bush said during a photo opportunity with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Washington. "We've been in touch with the Pakistani government; we've been in touch with The Wall Street Journal. We've got both our agencies in the area actively involved in trying to rescue him."
Pearl's abduction also has stirred up a diplomatic controversy between India and Pakistan. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar told a news conference in Berlin, Germany, Friday that cellular phone records of those arrested in the case showed calls to "prominent personalities in India."
Syed Kamal Shah, the police inspector general in Karachi, said one of the people Pearl was going to meet the day he was abducted was from the Indian state of Punjab.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official in Islamabad said if India were indeed involved, Pearl may be killed to embarrass Pakistan.
The official said Pakistan was expecting Indian intelligence agencies to "do something to spoil President (Pervez) Musharraf's visit to the United States." Musharraf begins his first official visit to the United States on Feb. 13.
India described the suggestions as "ridiculous" and as another "example of the Pakistani military establishment imagination running riot."
FNC rips CNN for irresponsibly and prematurely announcing Danny Pearl's death
Yes, but links get broken, & articles can even get altered after their initial posting. Posting the articles in full here creates an archive. It's one of the reasons JimRob is fighting the LA Times & WA Post in the courts. (They want links, FR says posting the full articles is an essential part of the media analysis & archival aspects of FR.)
That would make it even easier to trace. All the feds would have to do is check the anonymizer server then.
I remember that when the authorities went to interview this man, his family told them he was dead. This e-mail identifies him as one of the kidnappers. I've no doubt that they killed him because the e-mail gave the authorities a way to trace him; but did he send the e-mail because he was stupid, or because he was a collaborator with the authorities? Maybe there are others on the inside...
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