MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2002
INTERNATIONALNEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 23A
Journalist attempted escape before being slain, police say
The Associated Press
KARACHI, Pakistan — Daniel Pearl, a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, was slain by an Arab after he tried to escape from kidnappers who seized him eight days earlier, police said Sunday.
Two investigators, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the information was gleaned from three men who led police in May to a body that was identified by DNA tests as Pearl.
The three — Naeem Bukhari, Fazal Karim and Zubair Chishti — have not been charged in the Pearl case and Pakistani authorities have not even acknowledged publicly that they are in custody.
Pearl, 38, was kidnapped Jan. 23 in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani Islamic extremists and Richard C. Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoe.
Miami with suspicions. The three men were arrested as the trial of four other alleged kidnappers was under way. The four were later convicted and one of them, Britishborn Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was sentenced to death
by hanging. The others received life sentences. All four have appealed.
According to the two police officers, the abduction began on the night of Jan. 23 when Saeed telephoned his accomplices and ordered them to pick up Pearl in front of the Village Restaurant.
in front of the images. Pearl was put in one car, which was followed by a second containing three other kidnappers. The two vehicles followed Bukhari, who led the convoy on a motorcycle to the shack where Pearl was to be held.
Police said that on the sixth day, Pearl tried to escape as he was being led to the toilet. However, he was seized by Karim and Chishti, who beat him and shot him in the leg.
The struggle made so much noise that students at a nearby Islamic school run out onto the roof to see what was happening, police said.
what was happening,poor.
A day after the escape attempt, police said. Bukhari told his fellow kidnappers that they had to kill Pearl, although the officers said it was unclear who gave the order for his murder.
murder.
The kidnappers waited a day while they deliberated issuing a ransom demand, the officers said. On the
ninth day of the kidnapping, three Arabs, whom the suspects believed to have Yemenis, were brought to the hideout, the police said. The two officers said the Arabs were said to have associates of Ramzi Yousef
- the imprisoned mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Police said the kidnappers began asking Pearl a series of questions about his religion and his background as one of the Arabs filmed it with a video camera.
Mubaraki said. Suddenly, Karim seized Pearl's hands and one of the Arabs slit his throat, the officers said. The actual murder was supposed to have been recorded but "the cameraman lost his nerve," one of the policemen she了 videotape was later sent to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, confirming Pearl was dead.
The effect of the new allegations on the case against Saeed and the three others is unclear. The government had said it was looking for seven others in the case. Although the new account does not exonerate Saeed, some details are different from those presented by the prosecution at the initial trial.
Saudi, U.S. relationship strained
The Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — On a bliss-
tering 120-degree morning in August,
a Saudi Arabian Airlines pilot named
Sultan Al-Duwehi took his place in line
for a visa outside the U.S. Embassy.
Being made to stand outside and wait was a new experience for many of the two dozen Saudis in line. Since Sept. 11 the rules are stricter. No longer can Saudis leave the paperwork to their travel agent; everyone between ages 12 and 70 has to be interviewed by a consular officer, and approval can take more than five weeks.
"This is too much — over and beyond disgusting," said al-Duweihi. "Saudiis are being collectively punished for the actions of a few."
ished for the accounts
He was referring to Saudi-born
Osama bin Laden and to the 19
hijackers, 15 of them Saudis, who
killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept.
11.
Americans would argue that new precautions are only natural. But
Saudis feel betrayed by a country where many studied, vacationed and did business, and which they looked to as a bastion of the freedoms and human rights they long for.
"People see the visa line as a sign that says, 'Hey we hate you, we regard you with suspicion, we don't want you,'" said Khaled M. Batarfi, a managing editor of the Saudi newspaper Al-Madina and a journalism graduate of the University of Oregon.
of the University.
Saudi and U.S. officials insist that government-to-government ties remain solid, that the basis of the relationship — Saudi oil in return for U.S. protection against the kingdom's foreign enemies — has not changed.
greetings.
"The relations are there. They have existed for 70 years," Prince Saud, the foreign minister, told The Associated Press recently, and added that he saw nothing to indicate a change.
nothing to indicate a change.
But at the nongovernmental level the new frostiness has been evident in one incident after another: Rudy Giuliani, as New York mayor, spurning a
donation to the city from a Saudi prince; relatives of Sept. 11 victims suing Saudi officials, banks and charities, claiming they helped finance Osama bin Laden's network and the terror attacks; a U.S. defense think-tank analyst suggests the United States target Saudi oil fields and financial assets unless the kingdom does more to fight terrorism.
does more offering any specifics.
Without offering any specifics,
U.S. officials say the Saudis are giving
exceptional help in law enforcement
and intelligence since Sept. 11, and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this month he was happy
with the relationship.
with the relationship.
It could be that the Saudis, mindful of the tightrope they walk between the West and the Islamic militant movement, don't want to make their cooperation too public. Rumsfeld hinted as much when he said that if countries are helping "and they'd prefer not to discuss it, that's their choice, and we can live with that, too."
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