Body Is Alleged to Be Pearl’s

At least two members of an outlawed extremist group led Pakistani police Thursday to what they said was the body of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Police said early today that forensic experts were examining the body, found in a rural area on the northwestern outskirts of this port city, to determine whether it was that of the Wall Street Journal reporter, who was killed last winter.

Reports in early February that Pearl’s remains had been found turned out to be false and were painful for Pearl’s family and embarrassing to Pakistani investigators. Karachi police commanders were being more cautious early today, releasing little information.

Although police suspect that the remains found in the unmarked grave are those of Pearl, Pakistani presidential spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi said this morning that the identity had not been confirmed.

“We have heard that certain tests must be done before they can confirm it,” Quereshi said. He added that he did not know what stage the exhumation of the remains had reached or whether the forensic procedures, such as DNA testing, had begun.

Pearl attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, and his parents live in Southern California.

The arrest of two suspected members of the banned group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi earlier Thursday led to the latest step in the investigation of Pearl’s abduction Jan. 23 and his subsequent slaying, a police source said.

Pakistani authorities originally identified seven suspects in the killing, four of whom are on trial.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is the military wing of Sipah-e-Sahaba, and both groups have been accused of waging a terrorist war against minority Shiite Muslims in Pakistan.

Musharraf banned the groups in a Jan. 12 speech in which he promised to eradicate terrorism. But his critics say the campaign is faltering, and they accuse elements of the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of secretly undermining the anti-terrorism effort.

Pearl was kidnapped while investigating possible links between Pakistan-based Islamic extremists and Richard C. Reid, a Briton accused of trying to set off explosives in his shoes during a flight in December from Paris to Miami.

The recovery of Pearl’s body would be a significant boost to the prosecution of the four men on trial in a special anti-terrorism court in the Pakistani city of Hyderabad.

The men, who have pleaded not guilty, include Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, an admitted kidnapper and well-known Islamist who was born in Britain to Pakistani parents.

Without a body, the prosecution has been relying on circumstantial evidence, such as e-mails and a three-minute videotape allegedly sent by the kidnappers. The tape shows Pearl apparently being decapitated. When it was shown in court this week, the defense claimed it was a fake.

FBI video expert John Falgon acknowledged during cross-examination Thursday that “such videos can be prepared through computers,” defense attorney Rai Bashir told reporters afterward.

The trial, which is closed to the media and other members of the public, began April 22 inside Karachi’s central jail out of security concerns. It was moved to Hyderabad when prosecutors complained of death threats and intimidation by the defendants.

In briefings to reporters outside the jail, the prosecution has accused the defendants of frequent outbursts and other attempts to disrupt the proceedings.

Musharraf has said he will not extradite Sheikh or any suspects in Pearl’s slaying to the United States because he wants justice done in Pakistan, to send a strong message to extremists.

Sheikh, a disciple of Pakistani militant leader Maulana Masood Azhar, was jailed in India for the 1992 kidnapping of Californian backpacker Bela Joseph Nuss and three British tourists.

India’s government released Azhar and Sheikh from prison in December 1999 as part of a deal to win the release of passengers on an Indian Airlines flight hijacked to the Afghan city of Kandahar.

Times staff writer Watson reported from Dubai and special correspondent Rahman from Karachi.