Posted on 05/14/2002 9:02:36 AM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
HYDERABAD, Pakistan (AP) - A graphic three-minute videotape of Daniel Pearl's death was shown Tuesday to the trial of four Islamic militants accused in the kidnap-slaying of the Wall Street Journal reporter. Defense attorneys challenged the video as a "fake." The defendants were emotionless as the video played, said Rai Bashir, a defense attorney.
The courtroom was quiet, but for a sudden outburst from someone in the court who said in Urdu, "they're making a mountain out of a molehill," according to Abdel Waheed Katpar, the lawyer for the chief suspect in Pearl's killing, British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.
The court dismissed objections of defense lawyers to allowing the prosecution to show the video taken just before and after he was killed.
"It is clear that the video has been manipulated by computers. It is fake and it can't be taken as a piece of evidence," Bashir said.
"It was like watching a movie, like the X-Files or Pearl Harbor," Katpar said in an interview.
Chief Prosecutor Raja Quereshi refused to comment on either the video or the reaction from within the courtroom.
Reporters are barred from attending the proceedings at a special anti-terrorism court inside the Hyderabad central jail, but lawyers are allowed to brief them outside amid extreme security, including sharpshooters on nearby rooftops.
Quereshi also called in an FBI video expert, identified as John Falgon, who testified that he had helped in the investigation and had obtained a copy of the tape through a source.
The videotape that confirmed Pearl's death was delivered to U.S. officials in Karachi on Feb. 21 by someone described as a Pakistani journalist.
According to investigators who have seen it, the tape shows Pearl being forced to say he is Jewish and then having his neck cut while he is unconscious or already dead. The only face shown in the video is Pearl's.
According to Bashir, the video showed Pearl with an unintelligible voice in the background. The tape cuts away to images of Palestinian children in refugee camps. Two hands then appear behind Pearl, one grasping his head and the other slashing his neck. The body did not move or react, which made it appear that he already dead, Bashir said.
The trial, which began April 22, was moved from Karachi because of security concerns. The city in southern Pakistan, where Pearl disappeared last January, is a base for Islamic militants, many of whom are angered by Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led war on terror in neighboring Afghanistan.
On Monday, an expert testified that written drafts of the e-mails sent by Pearl's kidnappers matched the handwriting of the chief defendant and one of his alleged accomplices.
All four defendants have pleaded innocent to charges of kidnapping, murder and terrorism. If convicted they could be sentenced to death.
Pearl, 38, disappeared Jan. 23 while investigating a story linking Pakistani Islamic militants to Richard C. Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes.
Two of the e-mails sent by Pearl's kidnappers to U.S. and Pakistani news organizations claimed to be from a previously unknown group called the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty.
An FBI expert told the court on Saturday that he had traced the e-mails to one of the four defendants and had examined the laptop from which they were sent, lawyers said. That expert will be recalled for cross-examination on Thursday.
AP-ES-05-14-02 1114EDT
I heeded SBeck's advice, so I cannot comment on the validity of the link . . .
However, I always thought this video showed Pearl's gruesome murder right after he said he was Jewish. Now it appears it is spliced together like a Hollywood film. Different scenes could be days later.
I was led to believe he was beheaded alive; probably better for him if he was dead or unconscious already when his throat was cut, poor guy.
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