London, February 6
Crucial new evidence has surfaced to link the kidnapping of US journalist Daniel Pearl to the September 11 terror attacks, according to well-placed intelligence sources.The breakthrough in information came with the arrest of three suspected accomplices of Omar Sheikh, one of the three terrorists released after the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu in December, 1999. The three suspects belong to the banned
Jaish-e-Mohammad, according to a report in Islamabad’s Ausaf daily.
The arrests followed unprecedented cooperation between the police forces of India, Pakistan and the UK, according to these sources.
The three police forces joined hands after investigations showed that the prime suspect in Pearl’s kidnapping could be Sheikh, the British youth arrested in India for kidnapping Western tourists and who disappeared in Pakistan on being released after the hijacking.
The Pakistani police got on to Sheikh after critical information from the Indian police showed he could be following the pattern of kidnapping Westerners that he adopted in India.
Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi last month while investigating terrorist groups in the country.
The Indian information on Sheikh was confirmed by intelligence reports with the Pakistani police and with MI6, the external intelligence wing of the UK Government, Indian sources here said.
According to these reports, the kidnapping of Pearl was the work of Sheikh or of groups working closely with him.
The Times’ report from Karachi said three accomplices of Sheikh were arrested in Karachi. They were identified as
Fawad, Suleman and Adeel.
Information on Sheikh reportedly came from what Indian intelligence sources described as “intensive interrogation” of the three suspects in Karachi.
The information has added weight to investigations by the Indian police earlier, which revealed that Sheikh had sent about $100,000 to Mohammed
Atta, who masterminded the September 11 attacks on the USA.
ISLAMABAD:
Mariane, wife of Daniel Pearl, on Wednesday again appealed for his release “in the name of the same justice that the abductors are looking for’’.
Herself a journalist and six months pregnant, Mariane said her husband was no spy, nor working for any government as alleged by the kidnappers in their alleged e-mails to the media.
“My husband can’t change the foreign policy, but he can give voice to people — he can express the view of the people who hold him to the world,’’ she told the Islamabad newspaper The Nation in a written interview.
IANS, DPA
