Pakistan Police Say Dumped Body Is Not U.S. Reporter

In the latest twist to the already enigmatic case of kidnapped American journalist Daniel Pearl, top police investigators rushed to a hospital in this port city early today only to find that a body brought there with a bullet wound in the head was not that of the U.S. reporter.

The body had been dumped in an old quarter of the sprawling, crime-ridden city and was brought to a public hospital, then transferred to a private hospital in the upscale Clifton district.

Summoned to the facility, investigators and close colleagues of Pearl from the Wall Street Journal quickly ruled out the possibility that the body was Pearl’s, based on its smaller stature, darker complexion and different teeth, according to Manzoor Mughal, senior superintendent of police in Karachi.

“It wasn’t even a close match,” U.S. Consulate spokesman Lonnie Kelley said.

The unidentified body was believed to be that of a foreign male, possibly an Iranian, Mughal said.

“The investigation into the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl is continuing,” he said.

“There was a threat that kidnappers were going to dump [Pearl’s] body,” said Tariq Jamil, deputy superintendent of police in Karachi. “That’s why we take these reports seriously.”

The development marked the second time in three days that those closest to the case feared that Pearl, who disappeared here Jan. 23, might be dead. On Friday, Western news organizations received an e-mail--at the time believed to be from the kidnappers--declaring that Pearl had been killed and his body dumped in one of the city’s graveyards.

As the latest scare passed early today, emotionally drained investigators once again returned to the assumption that Pearl was still alive, in a case that has now expanded to other major cities.

Senior law enforcement authorities said Sunday that they have fully discounted the e-mail received Friday, which at first seemed like a credible death announcement.

“We believe Mr. Pearl is alive,” said Syed Kamel Shah, inspector general of police for the region that includes Karachi. “We are making headway in our investigation.”

Still, after searching hundreds of graveyards in the city three times, seizing computers and rounding up suspects ranging from an Islamic cleric to teenage pranksters, authorities remained mystified about the fate of Pearl, the Journal’s South Asia regional correspondent.

On Sunday, they expanded their dragnet to the capital, Islamabad, and its environs, where they made several raids and detained suspects for questioning.

Ten people were believed to be in police custody Sunday.

A senior police source in the Islamabad area said that the search had expanded to all of Pakistan, and particularly to the loosely governed areas bordering Afghanistan.

Pearl was last seen en route to what he believed was a meeting with the leader of a shadowy extremist group.

Most vexing to investigators, who now include a group from the FBI, have been a spate of false e-mails and prank telephone calls for ransom that led to at least two arrests over the weekend.

A teenager in the northeastern city of Lahore was detained in connection with four of the hoax e-mails and was scheduled to be transferred to authorities in Karachi for further questioning. Two other teens were detained along with their laptop computer in Karachi but were released after extensive questioning and a scanning of the computer’s hard drive turned up no evidence of links to the kidnapping, according to Shah.

Another two suspects had been detained in Islamabad in connection with two false ransom calls, according to a local police source.

Despite discounting ransom calls, investigators are increasingly operating under the assumption that the kidnap group--which dubbed itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty--had pecuniary, not political, motives, according to an intelligence source.

American investigators have reportedly suggested to their Pakistani counterparts that at least one kidnapper could be from an ethnic group common in Punjab province, where the capital is located, the source said. That analysis, he said, was based on clothing and body clues gleaned from an e-mailed photograph that showed the man’s arm and hand holding a handgun to Pearl’s head.

The lack of a new photograph in Friday’s e-mailed death announcement led investigators to doubt its authenticity, as did the management of the Wall Street Journal, which has urged the kidnappers to resume contact and send a photograph of Pearl with a current newspaper to prove that he is alive.

The initial rambling and politically tinged messages from the group contained photographs and demands that included the release of Pakistanis being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as of a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.

One source close to the investigation in Karachi said authorities were working on the assumption that if Pearl had been killed by hard-line terrorists, they would have been eager to show evidence of their deed, either via a photograph or by more clearly directing authorities toward his body. The only hint in Friday’s death note of where the body might be was that it could be found in a graveyard in Karachi. But searches of the city’s 300-odd cemeteries late Friday and most of Saturday produced no evidence of Pearl’s fate.

Pearl, 38, was investigating Pakistani connections to Richard C. Reid, a British citizen accused of trying to ignite a shoe bomb on a Paris-to-Miami flight in December. Pearl was attempting to contact Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, head of the fundamentalist Islamic group Jamaat ul-Fuqra, about its possible ties with Reid, when he disappeared. Gilani is no longer considered a suspect.

Calls for Pearl’s release have come from sources as varied as the U.S. and Pakistani governments, Amnesty International, journalism groups, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and Yusuf Islam, formerly known as pop star Cat Stevens.

*

Mohan reported from Islamabad and Marshall from Karachi.