Group claiming to have seized WSJ reporter demands better treatment for Afghanistan detainees

Posted 9:06AM on Monday 28th January 2002 ( 23 years ago )

NEW YORK - A Wall Street Journal reporter has apparently been taken hostage in Pakistan by a group seeking repatriation of detained Pakistani fighters in Cuba and the release of Afghanistan's former ambassador to Pakistan. An e-mail from "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" accused reporter Daniel Pearl of being a CIA officer posing as a journalist, an accusation the newspaper and CIA dismisses. Pearl, 38, a reporter based in Bombay, India, has been missing since Wednesday, when he went to visit a source near Karachi, Pakistan, for a story about terrorism, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. In Pakistan, police sources speaking on condition they not be identified told The Associated Press they believe Pearl was kidnapped by Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, which has close ties to al-Qaida and is on the U.S. government's terrorist organizations list. "In the interest of humanity, the terrorists should release Mr. Pearl immediately," Steven Goldstein, a vice president of Dow Jones & Co., the Journal's owner, said. Goldstein said the newspaper "has not had any direct contact with the group" that claimed to hold Pearl, and that their missing reporter "has no connection whatever with the government of the United States, including its Central Intelligence Agency." The CIA also denied that Pearl worked for the agency. "Although we don't normally discuss such matters, Daniel Pearl does not now nor has he ever worked for the CIA," said agency spokeswoman Anya Guilsher. Guilsher would not comment on the group named in the e-mail or its demands. The e-mail which was sent to various U.S. newspapers was accompanied by four photographs purporting to show Pearl chained in captivity. One showed him with hunched over with a gun to his head. The group demanded that Pakistani nationals detained by the U.S. government be allowed access to their lawyers and families, the handing over to Pakistan of Afghanistan's former ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, and the release of F-16 fighter jets purchased by Pakistan in the 1980s. The request for the aircraft was apparently sent as an attachment within the e-mail and written in Urdu. The planes were never delivered because of U.S. sanctions related to Islamabad's nuclear-weapons program, The New York Times and Journal reported Monday. The e-mail was sent using Microsoft's free e-mail service, Hotmail, with the user name "kidnapperguy," the Times said. The Journal quoted the e-mail as saying Pearl was being held "in very inhuman circumstances quite similar in fact to the way Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American army. If the Americans keep our countrymen in better conditions, than we will better the conditions of Mr. Pearl and all other Americans that we capture." The e-mail said Pakistanis being held at the camp in Cuba must be given access to lawyers and their families, and "must be returned to Pakistan and they will be tried in a Pakistani court." It also called for sending Zaeef back to Pakistani custody. Zaeef, who was the Taliban's most-recognized spokesman, was deported from Pakistan to Afghanistan in early January and turned over to U.S. military forces. He is one of the highest-ranking Taliban officials in U.S. custody. Goldstein said the e-mail had been sent to "many different people" at The New York Times and The Washington Post, but not to the Journal and "was sent to us by couple of people." He said the Journal received it early Sunday. The Los Angeles Times also received it. New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed the e-mail was addressed to nine of the newspaper's generic e-mail addresses but not to any individuals. "To the best of our knowledge no one at the Times sent it to the Wall Street Journal," Mathis said. The e-mail recipients appeared to be chosen at random from the newspapers' Web sites. Andy Mosher, deputy foreign editor at The Washington Post, said six individuals there received copies of the e-mail, including a reporter in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Journal said Pearl has been a staff reporter for 12 years, in Atlanta, Washington and London, and has been its South Asia bureau chief since December 2000. He was in Karachi to interview leaders of radical Islamic groups, the newspaper said. The Journal said the kidnappers had made a mistaken assumption. "As a private citizen employed by an independent newspaper, neither Mr. Pearl, nor we, can change the policies of the United States or Pakistan," Goldstein said.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/1/203212