‘Definitive Signs’ Indicate Reporter Is Alive, Police Say

Pakistani authorities have found “definitive signs” that Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl is alive and have identified as a key suspect in his kidnapping an Islamic extremist with links to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

The break in the 2-week-old case came after a man detained Tuesday identified Ahmad Omar Sayed Sheikh as the man who ordered him to send e-mail messages along with photographs of the captive correspondent, according to police sources.

Police are said to be holding Sheikh’s family members in the eastern city of Lahore as part of their effort to capture him, according to a top investigative source.

He said that Sheikh’s family members had been detained for questioning about his whereabouts. It is standard police procedure in South Asia to detain family members as a tactic to pressure a suspect into surrendering.

“The arrest of Omar Sheikh may lead police to the recovery of Daniel Pearl,” said a senior member of the police investigative team in Karachi, who declined to be identified by name. “He is a key suspect.”

The top investigative source wouldn’t elaborate on the information that Pearl is alive for fear of jeopardizing him.

Pearl, 38, the paper’s correspondent for South Asia, disappeared Jan. 23 in Karachi. A group that called itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty claimed responsibility and called for the release of Pakistani terrorist suspects being held by the United States.

Sheikh, a 27-year-old British citizen of Pakistani heritage, had been active in kidnapping rings that raised funds for Muslim rebels fighting to bring all of Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan territory divided between India and Pakistan, under Pakistani control.

Sheikh is one of three Pakistani militants whom India released from prison to free passengers of an Indian Airlines jet hijacked from Katmandu, Nepal, to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1999.

After winning his freedom, Sheikh returned to Pakistan, where for the last several years he has been active in Islamic fundamentalist groups that are on the State Department’s “watch list” of terrorist organizations.

Sheikh, a well-educated mathematics prodigy who embraced extremist causes after a summer job helping Muslim victims of the Balkan conflicts, is believed to have transferred money to alleged Sept. 11 lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, according to British intelligence.

Jaish-e-Mohammed, an extremist group that authorities are examining for alleged ties to Sheikh, disavowed any association with the suspect or the kidnapping in a statement released Wednesday in the northern city of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-held Kashmir.

The other suspect group under police scrutiny, Harkat Moujahedeen, has been silent. The organization is on a State Department list of terrorist groups whose bank accounts have been ordered frozen.

Pearl had reported that an account linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed was functioning. He was also investigating suspected links between another banned extremist group, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, and alleged “shoe bomber” Richard C. Reid.

Exactly which group is involved remains unresolved, although investigators appear to be focusing on the relation of three suspects detained Tuesday to Jaish-e-Mohammed or Harkat Moujahedeen.

The men, identified only as Fawad, Salman and Adeel, allegedly sent the first two e-mail messages about Pearl’s kidnapping, along with photographs, on orders from Sheikh, according to investigative sources.

“We are working on certain individuals, and we are trying to work out affiliations,” said Tariq Jamil, deputy inspector general of police in Karachi. “We have our suspicions that they may belong to one of these groups, but the strength of their affiliations we don’t know. . . . These young men swing from one group to another. Unless we get to the core person, we won’t know.”

A fourth suspect was detained Wednesday in Rawalpindi. Police said the man is an Arab identified as Hannan Ahmad, who is believed to have made more than 90 telephone calls to numbers in Karachi that already were under suspicion.

Jaish and Harkat have operated in Karachi, where Sheikh owns a home, according to a top investigative source.

India accuses Jaish-e-Mohammed of involvement in a deadly Dec. 13 attack on its Parliament.

The focus on Sheikh would add credence to the theory that Pearl probably knew those who kidnapped him. In December, one of his reports focused heavily on Jaish-e-Mohammed. In that report, Pearl spoke of “Jaish activities” and attributed comments to “Jaish members,” using language that indicated he had spoken with them.

Jameel Yusuf, director of the Citizens Police Liaison Committee, a private group established to reduce crime in Karachi, said Pearl had shown him e-mail exchanges with a man called Bashir.

Yusuf said Pearl also received a call from someone named Siddique on the day he disappeared.

Sources close to the case suspect that one or both of those names might have been an alias for Sheikh.

Sheikh was born to relative privilege in the London suburb of Wanstead and attended the London School of Economics.

In 1993, he traveled to Bosnia-Herzegovina to deliver aid to Muslim victims of “ethnic cleansing” campaigns. Within a year, he had joined Harkat Ansar, a radical Muslim group fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir.

In 1994, he was sentenced to prison by Indian authorities for his role in kidnapping three Britons and an American.

His release in the Indian Airlines hijacking made him a celebrity in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where he allegedly rubbed shoulders with the Taliban leadership and Al Qaeda members.