Sheikh admits to kidnapping, says journalist is dead
By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press

KARACHI, Pakistan — A British-born Muslim militant admitted Thursday to kidnapping Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl and said he believed the journalist is dead. Officials dismissed the militant’s claim, and the Journal said it remained confident Pearl is alive.

“As far as I understand, he’s dead,” Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh said in a courthouse in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, where Pearl disappeared on Jan. 23 while investigating a story on Islamic militants. Saeed said he carried out the kidnapping of “my own free will,” adding: “I don’t want to defend this case. I did this.”

The 27-year-old Saeed has a history of kidnapping Westerners. He appeared in court Thursday sullen, bespectacled and surrounded by police with machine guns, helmets and bulletproof vests.

He was formally charged with kidnapping and ordered jailed for two more weeks.

Officials quickly cast doubt on Saeed’s statement about Pearl’s death. He gave no details on where or when the 38-year-old journalist was allegedly killed, and just a day earlier, police said, he had told them Pearl was still alive.

In Washington, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said his government does not believe Saeed because he has been “saying something one day and another thing on the other day.”

“We are putting all kinds of pressure,” Musharraf said after a meeting Thursday with U.S. lawmakers. He said intelligence agencies in Pakistan and the FBI are doing their “utmost” to secure Pearl’s release.

Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider also dismissed Saeed’s claim.

“Until the body is found we cannot believe what Omar is saying,” Haider said. “We need proof or evidence. We will continue to work on him, grind him, ask him ’where was Pearl kept? Where is his body?’ Omar himself admitted he masterminded and planned this crime.”

Pearl’s wife, Mariane, who is six months pregnant with the couple’s first child, pleaded for her husband’s release in a letter to his captors.

“As you know, Danny is an innocent man, a journalist who has come to you as a guest with an open mind and the sole objective of writing about your views for a global audience,” she wrote.

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