During that footage, Pearl is forced to identify himself as Jewish and to deliver scripted lines reiterating some of the demands made in the e-mails, according to an FBI analysis of the tape that was provided to the Journal. This e-mail accused him of being an agent of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, and said he would be killed within 24 hours unless the group’s demands were met.Īfter scrutinizing the videotape that officials received weeks later, authorities believe that Pearl may have been murdered before the second e-mail was sent. The sender or senders, who used a Hotmail e-mail account under the name “Kidnapperguy,” said Pearl was “at present being kept in very inhuman circumstances quite similar infact to the way that Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American Army.”Īnother e-mail was sent on January 30, also including photographs of Pearl held captive. The e-mail contained a series of demands, including the repatriation of Pakistani detainees held by the U.S. The e-mail also contained four photographs of the journalist, including one in which he is held at gunpoint and another in which he is holding a copy of the January 24 issue of Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. According to The Wall Street Journal, Pearl had been reporting on Richard Reid, a suspected terrorist who allegedly tried to blow up an airplane during a transatlantic flight with a bomb in his shoe.įour days after his disappearance, a group calling itself “The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty” sent an e-mail to several U.S.- and Pakistan-based news organizations claiming responsibility for kidnapping Pearl and accusing him of being an American spy. Pearl, 38, went missing on January 23, 2002, in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan, and was last seen on his way to an interview at the Village Restaurant, downtown near the Metropole Hotel. This, and other details below, are documented in an extensive report on Pearl’s murder, entitled The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl, published in 2011 by The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Center for Public Integrity. The faces of the assailants are not visible on the video. The exact date of his murder was uncertain, but authorities announced his death after receiving a graphic, three-and-a-half minute digital videotape containing scenes in which one of the killers slits Pearl’s throat, and then someone holds his severed head. government officials confirmed on February 21, 2002, that Pearl, kidnapped South Asia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, had been killed by his captors.
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