Asia Times: Pearl kidnap catch could turn to ashes


	February 15, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pearl kidnap catch could turn to ashes
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - News of the arrest of the chief suspect in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping case will have boosted the image of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf in the eyes of his Washington host, President George W Bush. But the view that Musharraf has a tight grip on affairs in his country may prove an illusion in this case.

The suspect, British-born militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (commonly known as Sheikh Omar), appeared in court on Thursday morning, and his statements there indicate that he is nothing more than a foot soldier in the bizarre case of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal journalist who was abducted over a fortnight ago.

Omar told the anti-terrorism court in Karachi that, "As far as I understand, he [Pearl] is dead." He also claimed responsibility for the kidnapping: "Yes, I kidnapped him," he said in response to a question from the judge.

Omar's statement was yet another sudden shift in the development of the case which, it appears, is going to grow still more puzzling in coming days.

On Wednesday, the inspector general of police for Sindh province, Syed Kamal Shah, termed Omar a "hard nut to crack" and said Omar was not prepared to say anything. According to sources, soon after his arrest Omar had told an interrogation team that several groups were involved in the kidnapping, and that he did not know where Pearl was, or whether he was still alive.

Omar's statements to the investigation team and to the court are a complete contradiction of his statement, cited by Deputy Inspector General of Police Tariq Jami, that Pearl was still alive.

Credit for Omar's arrest does not go to the Pakistani police, despite what the police say. Omar gave himself up. Before he did so, he telephoned various intelligence officers and police officials to say that he was not involved in the kidnapping, and he asked them to stop bothering his relatives. When police continued to harass and detain relatives, Omar finally sent a message saying he was in Sheikupura but would come to Lahore and inform the police of his whereabouts. He did so, and was arrested.

Immediately after the arrest on Tuesday, Omar was transported from Lahore to Karachi and handed over to a senior joint interrogation team comprising officials from the intelligence department of the police, Inter-Services Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau, and Military Intelligence.

Sources say that until Wednesday morning, Omar did not mention the whereabouts of Daniel Pearl and insisted that he was not involved in the case. However, Omar gave the names of his contacts in Karachi; the subsequent police raid unearthed no clue about Pearl's whereabouts.

As Asia Times Online has pointed out previously, the Pearl case is odd in that the investigation always changes course in midstream, deviating toward areas that are not directly related to the case. For instance, initially it was said that Pearl had been in touch with the Harkatul Mujahadeen group, but suddenly investigations shifted to Jamiatul Fuqarah. Mubarak Ali Jilani, the chief of Jamiatul Fuqarah, appeared before police officials and was arrested. Interrogation revealed that he had no link with the Pearl kidnapping, and the police chief proclaimed him innocent. However, he is still being interrogated by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency over his links in the US and India.

Many details have unfolded about Jilani's followers in Florida, mostly African-American Muslims who finance his organization with large, regular donations.

After Jilani, a former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official, Khalid Khawaja was interrogated, released, and again arrested. Khawaja retired in the late 1980s and was a close associate of Osama bin Laden. When he was picked up during the Pearl investigations, he proudly admitted that he had been a close friend of bin Laden but had nothing to do with the kidnapping. All investigating agencies, including those of the US, gave him a clean bill of health as far as the Pearl case was concerned. However, a few days ago he was arrested again for investigation into his links with bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Aslam Khan Shirani is another example of the strange fish being netted in the Pearl investigation. Contrary to a US newspaper's claim, Shirani has never been an ISI offiical. He is a private citizen who was involved in the Afghan war during the Soviet occupation. He was on the ISI's payroll to recruit and train volunteers for the Afghan jihad, and operated a training camp near Peshawer University until 1991. After the then director general of ISI, Lt Gen Hamid Gul, was removed, the camp was closed. From the mid-'90s, apparently, Shirani was not active in jihad activity. But his arrest is likely to open a new Pandora's box, and many high-profile names are likely to be affected by his investigation, according to a source.

Judging by the pattern of investigations into the Pearl case so far, even if Pearl's fate remains a mystery, investigations will continue for a long time - until several networks of militant groups are exposed and broken.

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