ARACHI, Pakistan — The nursery where they killed him, one year on, is oddly peaceful. Lush mango, palm and pomegranate trees are in bloom, their thick, green leaves whispering in a gentle breeze.
The cinder-block storehouse where he was executed is empty, save for some flower pots, a cot and crumpled packs of cigarettes strewn across the floor. The 10-foot by 15-foot main room still has a metal door and metal shutters that can be padlocked. Sounds of life reach the room: birds chirping and cars driving past to a nearby religious school run by Al Rashid Trust, an organization the United States accuses of financing terrorist groups.
Twelve months after Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, was abducted, and then murdered in this nursery, which is viewable from the school's upper floors, the hard-line school and hundreds like it in Pakistan remain open.
A sense of unfinished business lingers over the case, and over Pakistan itself, as new details emerge. The Pakistani ringleaders who kidnapped Mr. Pearl have been convicted or are in custody, but three men, suspected of being Al Qaeda members, who are believed to have killed him are still at large. Pakistanis express shame over the killing, but some still believe Mr. Pearl was an American or Israeli spy.
Questions persist about the seriousness of the efforts of some elements of Pakistan's powerful intelligence service to find Mr. Pearl, as well as the seriousness of the Pakistani military's effort to crack down on militancy. In December, the leader of the group whose members planned the kidnapping, Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, was released from government detention.
An Islamic militant arrested in police sweeps last May has provided new information about Mr. Pearl's abduction and execution, according to Pakistani and Western officials. The man, identified as Fazal Karim, who is suspected of being a co-conspirator in the abduction, told the police he had worked as a night watchman at the nursery.
Just after 7 p.m. on Jan. 23, 2002, Mr. Pearl got into a car outside the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi thinking he was on his way to interview a reclusive Islamic leader who had possible ties to Richard C. Reid, the Qaeda recruit suspected of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with explosives in his shoes. In truth, Mr. Pearl had been lured into a trap by Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a British-born militant.
He was driven around Karachi for several hours that night, at one point changing vehicles, Mr. Karim, the watchman, told the police. Throughout the night, Mr. Pearl appeared calm, Mr. Karim said. It is not clear what Mr. Pearl saw, but during the final stretch of the ride his captors turned off a main highway heading north and drove toward the Gulshan-e-Maymar housing development on the outskirts of Karachi, which resembles an American suburban subdivision.
Little about the area would provoke alarm. At one entrance there are signs for the "elite school." At the other are signs for the "Pakistan Institute of Technology" and the "Dream World Fantasy Resort."
The captors took Mr. Pearl down a dirt road to a less-developed area nearby, stopping at the nursery. It sits in a vast field, surrounded by houses and buildings. The religious school is 500 yards in one direction. A large two-story luxury home is 500 yards away in another.
During his first week of captivity, Mr. Pearl tried to escape during a trip to the outhouse, Mr. Karim told the police. In the compound, it is easy to see why. The mud-brick fence that surrounds the nursery is only five feet tall and houses and apartment buildings can be seen in the distance.
Mr. Karim told the police Mr. Pearl's captors "roughed him up" as Mr. Pearl said he was "sorry," according to a Western official's account.
Mr. Karim also told the police that Mr. Pearl was shot in the leg, but the Western official said an autopsy found no leg wound.
On the sixth day of Mr. Pearl's captivity, three men Mr. Karim described as Arabs from Yemen arrived. "The Arabs came prepared," said the Western official. "They had a satchel, a drop cloth and assorted knives."
One spoke to Mr. Pearl in a language the watchman did not understand and the journalist's face "sort of lit up," the Western official said. "Danny seemed to get some sort of encouragement that he was near release."
Mr. Pearl was then videotaped saying: "My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am a Jew." and reading a statement criticizing the United States. "Then they put this blindfold over his head and started the execution," the Western official said.
Afterward, the Arabs ordered Mr. Karim, who claimed he was "revolted" by the killing, and the other guards to cut Mr. Pearl's body into pieces, the Western official said. The Arabs then left, leaving the Pakistanis to bury Mr. Pearl.
The journalist's body was buried in a shallow grave on the edge of the compound, near a bamboo trellis with grape vines. They placed his body parts back together and buried him face down, the Western official said. "It was very puzzling," the official said. "It was almost as if they were trying to set things right."
Pakistani officials will not comment on the new version of events or even confirm that Mr. Karim and other militants are in their custody. They are waiting until the completion of the appeal filed by Mr. Sheikh, who was convicted in July and sentenced to death for Mr. Pearl's kidnapping and murder. That process is expected to take months.
Mr. Karim and other militants arrested this spring were members of Lashkar-e-Jangvi, a militant Sunni Muslim group accused of murdering scores of Shiite Muslim doctors, police officers and businessmen. An alliance of militant groups, aided by Al Qaeda, appears to have killed Mr. Pearl and carried out bomb attacks on the American Consulate and a group of French engineers, according to Pakistani law enforcement officials.
The Pakistani police have made enormous headway in some areas. The leadership of Lashkar-e-Jangvi has been virtually destroyed in a series of arrests, shootings and an accidental explosion in a bomb-making factory, the Western official said. Sectarian killings and violence in Karachi are down. But Saud Memon, a wealthy Pakistani with ties to Al Qaeda who owns the nursery, remains at large, along with dozens of Qaeda members believed to be hiding in the country with the help of local militants.
Mr. Pearl's father, Judea, is organizing a worldwide memorial service for Mr. Pearl on Feb. 21, the date his death was confirmed.
"We ask that each synagogue that plans to conduct a memorial service invites a local church or a mosque to participate," Dr. Pearl said in a statement. "And that the service includes a statement condemning the hatred that killed Danny."
