The Pearl Project the Truth Left Behind

The Pearl Project The Truth Left Behind

Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl

The International Consortium THE CENTER FOR ICIJ of Investigative Journalists PUBLIC INTEGRITY

SHOW CONTENTS The Pearl Project The Truth Left Behind Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl

4 Author’s Note 12 Key Findings The Pearl Project spent more than three years investigating the roles of 27 men linked to the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl 16 Part 1: Finishing Danny’s Work Pakistani and U.S. officials are led to the remains of Daniel Pearl four months after his kidnapping by a miltant arrested for an unrelated hotel bombing. 25 Part 2: Baiting the Trap After “shoe bomber” Richard Reid tries to blow up a jet in late 2001, Pearl investigates if Reid had ties to a radical Pakistani cleric, Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, and tries to arrange a meeting with him. 31 Part 3: Trapping the Journalist British-born Omar Sheikh, once jailed for allegedly kidnapping Western tourists, offers to introduce Pearl to the extremist Muslim leader Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah as part of a trap to kidnap the journalist. 38 Part 4: Finding a Safehouse Omar Sheikh recruits a team to kidnap Pearl, finds a Karachi safe house to keep Pearl in captivity, and hires messengers to tell the world of the kidnapper’s demands. 46 Part 5: Kidnapping the Journalist Pearl is picked up on Jan. 23, 2002, for a promised introduction to a radical cleric, but is instead taken to a remote area where guards chain him to an old car engine in a small building.

3Cover CONTENTS AUTHOR'S NOTE4 51 Part 6: Holding the Hostage Photos of Pearl bound in chains are included in the first e-mailed ransom note that suggests he was a bargaining chip for the release of Al Qaeda prisoners. But, the same day a Pakistani newspaper reports Pearl is Jewish, another note is sent warning that Pearl would be executed. 61 Part 7: Killing the Journalist Al Qaeda operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed arrives at the safehouse to behead Pearl. Mohammed later tells the FBI he was drawn in by a senior Al Qaeda leader who said the kidnappers didn’t know what to do with Pearl and that Al Qaeda should “take advantage of it.” 68 Part 8: Losing the Race Against Times Police trace e-mailed ransom notes to a cyber cafe customer, who says he was hired by Omar Sheikh, the kidnapping mastermind. Sheikh’s family members persuade him to surrender to local authorities. 74 Part 9: Catching the Mastermind Omar Sheikh tells the FBI that he did not plan to kill Pearl, but captors had to hold him once newspapers revealed he was Jewish. On Feb. 21, 2002, the FBI is tipped about a man offering to sell a videotape that showed Pearl’s murder and FBI agents pose as reporters to obtain it. 82 Part 10: Rushing to Judgment After a three-month trial of Omar Sheikh and three others that is closed to the public, all four are convicted on July 15, 2002, of murdering Pearl. 92 Part 11: Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie An FBI agent analyzes the Pearl murder video and matches a distinctive bulging vein in the murder’s hand to a CIA photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s hand. 99 Epilogue: Waking Sleeping Dogs Of the 27 men involved in Pearl’s kidnapping and murder, 4 were convicted, 5 are dead, 4 are detained or missing, and 14 are free. 109 About This Project 114 Biographies Georgetown University faculty and students involved with the project.

Paris, July 2002 ton Globe story identifying “shoe very story has a mo- bomber” Richard Reid’s alleged ment when it was conceived, facilitator in Pakistan. That lead Eand this one is no different. had turned out to have fatal conse- In the Montmartre neighborhood quences. of Paris, in the summer of 2002, I On that clear Parisian day, I told sat in a café with Jill Abramson, Jill that while four men had just now managing editor for news at been convicted in Danny’s murder The New York Times. It had been — the mastermind, Omar Sheikh, five months since our friend Daniel and three co-conspirators — there Pearl, or Danny as we called him, had been murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. The three of us had been friends since our days together at the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal. After the Septem- ber 11, 2001, attacks, Danny’s reporting had led him from India, where he was The Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, to Daniel Pearl with Asra Nomani in Karachi, Pakistan. Danny had Pakistan, in November 2001. Nomani is showing been chasing a Bos- Pearl two stuffed animals. Credit: Asra Nomani

were still men on the streets who rachi when Danny and his wife, had been allegedly involved but not Mariane, had come to stay with me. charged. And we didn’t have a clue Danny had left my home for the who had actually killed him. interview from which he was kid- Jill told me about the Arizona napped, leaving Mariane to enter Project, an investigative reporting motherhood a widow. During the project by professional journalists search to find Danny, I learned that into the 1976 murder of Arizona I, too, was pregnant, but the biolog- Republic reporter Don Bolles. Her ical father of my unborn child had eyes lighting up, Jill said, “We need not stepped up to the responsibili- an Arizona Project for Danny.” ties of parenthood. Perhaps scared Jill’s idea was a good one. I off by the frightening attention of looked into the history of the Ari- the investigation into Danny’s mur- zona Project and was moved by der, or the more prosaic fears of be- what I learned. Like Danny, Bolles coming a father, he had abandoned had been lured to an interview that me. was a deadly hoax: the reporter be- I had moved to Paris to be near lieved he was going to meet with an Mariane when she delivered her informant regarding a land deal in- son, Adam. Soon after I saw Jill, I volving Arizona politicians and the returned to my hometown of Mor- Mafia. The source never showed gantown, West Virginia, to give up, and when Bolles returned to his birth to my son, Shibli, and with car, his Datsun exploded, a bomb my parents’ help, settled into life detonating after he started the en- as a single mother. The realities of gine. He died an agonizing death 11 life got in the way of my pursuing days later. Among his last words: a “Danny Project” and it would be “They finally got me.” After he died, longer than I had hoped before I reporters from all over the country could turn my attention to such an descended on Phoenix to report on undertaking, but the vision stayed the corruption that Bolles had been with me. investigating. It was a horrifying story, but also an inspiring one to put to rest all the unresolved issues Morgantown, West Virginia, 2007 surrounding my friend’s murder. By 2007, five years after Danny’s I had been on book leave in Ka- murder, I had moved forward with

my life — my son was four years trying to get more Muslim students old and thriving. I had left The Wall interested in journalism. Our mu- Street Journal and cobbled together tual friend thought maybe I’d have a professional life as the author of some contacts for her. Our e-mails two books, and I had become active back and forth quickly turned from in the Muslim community as a femi- the original topic to my dream for nist activist. I also wrote pieces as a “Danny Project” to investigate his a freelance journalist for publica- death. “Come to Georgetown,” she tions such as The Washington Post, said. “I’ll give you a classroom full Time magazine, and Salon. of smart students.” I paused. “I’ll But inside there was a hole help you. I’ll do all the grading,” she caused by a persistent, burrowing added, a saleswoman if I ever met grief. As I’d done in other difficult one. times, I turned to my craft. Jill’s Barbara and I are an unlikely idea for a “Danny Project” was still team, our roots diametrically op- on my mind, and in my heart. And posed. I was the Bombay-born so, in the spring of 2007, I wrote daughter of conservative Muslim a proposal to apply for a Nieman parents from India. At the age of Foundation fellowship at Harvard four, with my parents and brother, University. It would give me a sti- I had migrated to the United States, pend and the time I needed to pur- and grew up in Morgantown, West sue an investigation. Virginia, where my father was a I hoped to take a fresh look at professor of nutrition and my moth- Danny’s case — where it was both er a boutique owner. Barbara was in terms of the U.S. and Pakistani the daughter of liberal Jewish par- governments. Harvard wasn’t ex- ents from Chicago and Brooklyn, actly the right place, but I didn’t grandparents from Russia and Aus- know what was the right place; I tria. Her father was an 18th century knew only that I needed resources English literature scholar turned and an institutional home for this businessman and her mother a high idea. school English teacher. And then, in March, a friend in- But we had something in com- troduced me to Barbara Feinman mon: we were grounded in old- Todd, the director of journalism at school gumshoe reporting. Barbara Georgetown University. She was had been a research assistant to

Bob Woodward in the mid-1980s Convenient because Randall Ben- on a book about the CIA, after Bob nett, formerly the regional security and his partner Carl Bernstein had officer for the State Department forged new ground in investigative at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, journalism with their reporting of was going to be stateside in Phoe- the Watergate scandal. Since then, nix. Randall and I had gotten to she had become a ghostwriter and know each other during the hor- editor to well-known journalists rible weeks after Danny had been and politicians, including Hillary kidnapped. Randall was a compel- Rodham Clinton. Soon after, I drove ling figure, straight out of central to Washington, D.C., to meet Bar- casting, the kind of guy who comes bara. She had the enthusiasm and to mind when you hear words like the students. What she didn’t have “swagger,” and in fact, he had been was the funding beyond paying me portrayed in Hollywood’s version of a modest salary for one semester. Danny’s story. I wanted Barbara to “We’ll fund-raise it,” she said confi- meet him. dently. It wasn’t until later, after we We picked up Randall and drove got funding, that Barbara admitted to a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. that she had no clue how to raise Barbara asked about the day Paki- the money we needed for a proper stani officials found Danny’s re- investigation. “I just told myself mains. Randall paused, then spoke somehow we’d find the money,” she eerily, his voice low, as he described said. going to the site in May 2002, watching as Pakistani cops with shov- els dug in a corner of a walled off Phoenix, Arizona, June 2007 compound and unearthed Danny’s In early June 2007, as Barbara and mutilated remains. I just remem- I began to plan our seminar for the ber a candle on the table with the following fall, we decided to travel smoke wafting into the air as Ran- to the annual conference of Inves- dall spoke and Barbara grew silent. tigative Reporters and Editors, the I learned later that Barbara was world’s largest association of in- sick to her stomach that night and vestigative journalists, forged out couldn’t sleep. What bothered her of the Arizona Project. It was con- more than the gruesome details was veniently being held in Arizona. the fact that my face remained im-

passive during Randall’s narrative. talk about our project and our fund- She admitted later that caught in a ing needs. A former journalist her- long security line, trying to catch self, now in her 80s, she followed a flight back to Washington, D.C., our complicated tale involving the next day, she started to cry. more than 20 suspects. She as- She was bothered by how I seemed sured us that the foundation would unmoved by the horror of what we want to fund our cause and that she heard. She also wondered whether would be in touch. “She’s our fairy she could remain stoic enough to godmother,” Barbara said, leaving do the investigation, whether she Marian’s home in northern Virginia could teach our students to be pro- after our first meeting, a basket of fessional when her own veneer was blueberries — a gift from Marian — cracking. in her hands. On the logistics of support for our project, Barbara had been close: the money found us. In late June 2007, Wheaton, Maryland, August 2007 Marian Cromley, an advisory com- Barbara would soon learn that my mittee member from the Oklahoma impassivity was a mask, both to the City-based Ethics and Excellence world and to myself. in Journalism Foundation, read a In Karachi, I had hand-drawn piece I wrote in The Washington a chart to identify links between Post, headlined “A Mighty Shame,” suspects. There was now software, arguing that the movie A Mighty I learned, that could do the same Heart, about the search for Danny, work. Every morning, I set off was disappointing because Danny with my father for an office build- ended up with a mere cameo in his ing in Reston, Va., to learn how to own murder. She wrote to me ask- input data into a program called ing if the project needed financial Analyst’s Notebook. My father, support. The Ethics and Excellence now a retired professor, was my de in Journalism Foundation was es- facto researcher, at least until the tablished through an endowment Georgetown class got started and left by a pioneer woman journal- I could get help from our students. ist from Oklahoma, Edith Gaylord, I sat in the second row of a class- who covered Eleanor Roosevelt. room filled with clean-shaven Mor- Marian invited us to her home to mon members of the Utah National

Guard, in training before a stint in of what I was about to embark upon Afghanistan as drug intelligence an- had perhaps slain me. My body was alysts. An instructor taught my fa- shutting down. For his part, Shibli ther and me how to fill the “fields” was thrilled to ride in an ambu- on individual people’s entries. We lance. The physicians couldn’t di- mapped a drug case. I was begin- agnose what had happened to me, ning to see how the events lead- and within a few days I was back to ing up to Danny’s murder could be normal and back on the job. translated into data with patterns, networks, and metrics. It was beginning to dawn on me that I was Washington, September 4, 2007 really going to be going back into The clock read 5:48 p.m. Twenty ea- the trenches of Danny’s kidnapping ger students assembled behind the and murder. desks in a classroom on M Street, One night, I tucked Shibli, my off the campus of Georgetown Uni- four-year old son, into bed. I told versity— the first class of the Pearl him I’d get a book from downstairs. Project. Barbara and I introduced I didn’t return. ourselves, and I walked the stu- “Mama?” Shibli yelled, as he am- dents through the key moments of bled down the stairs. the case, identifying the questions He saw me in the living room, students would be tasked to an- slumped on the hardwood floor. swer, setting up the investigation. My mother came downstairs. She “We couldn’t save Danny,” I said, had seen me through such a range “but, through the Pearl Project, we of emotions the past several years, will find the truth left behind.” and thought I had just gotten tired I told the students how on the day and fallen asleep on the floor. “Asra, of the kidnapping and well into that wake up,” she said, to no response. night, I sat hunched over Danny’s She pulled me onto the sofa. computer with his wife, Mariane, Waking up the next morning, reading his e-mails and learning groggy and tired, I went upstairs to that he was going to an interview slip into bed, but I fell before reach- with a man named Sheik Mubarak ing the bed, unable to make my Ali Shah Gilani, how Danny had body do what I was willing it. “Call told me with great excitement the 911,” I said. The emotional weight afternoon of his kidnapping that he

had discovered the e-mail address thing that you have in this class to which Richard Reid was e-mail- which we did not have is that you ing. have over 20 people with 20 differ- “One of our jobs is to finish Dan- ent mindsets, different approaches, ny’s work,” Barbara told the class. different backgrounds but you’re “We want to establish who Richard all inquisitive. Now you can take Reid’s facilitator was in Pakistan. information that the bureau didn’t That was the story Danny was chas- have access to and you’ll be able to ing when he died.” put some things together that the Next, we talked about other bureau never did, or that they re- questions that had emerged over fused to do.” the years: lapses in the investigation and the court case; the identities of so-called absconders in the Washington, January 2011 case. Nearly three-and-a-half years later, I continued: “Another goal: To after conducting hundreds of in- establish who killed Danny and terviews, scouring hundreds of why they killed him.” documents, and filing one lawsuit, We set up the class to operate as Feinman vs. CIA et al., against a newsroom, assigning students to eight government agencies, we’ve beats including covering U.S. and resolved much of what we set out Pakistani law enforcement and in- to accomplish. There are still some telligence, as well as the many cells unanswered questions but, for the that handled different stages of the most part, we’ve reported out the crime. We taught our students how story. It is a story of a murder case to identify and develop sources, fraught with bungled leads, missed obtain documents, and verify infor- opportunities, and political expedi- mation. They learned to work the ency that stretches from Karachi phones. We met our secret sources, to Washington. And it was done or “deep throats,” in Yahoo chat with the extraordinary help of 32 rooms. student-journalists from every walk In one of the first classes, Tarine of life — from a Russian-American “Ty” Fairman, a former FBI agent immigrant to a Florida diving cham- who worked on the Danny inves- pion. tigation, told the students: “One By triangulating information

from interviews, court documents, includes his laptop, guide to Per- secret Pakistani police interroga- sian language, and passport. There tion reports, FBI interview reports, is also an exhibit for Don Bolles and State Department cables, we featuring his mangled, rusted Dat- made sense of a jumble of aliases, sun. so that we could know the faces We hope that what follows here and stories of the men with whom also serves as a tribute to Danny Danny spent his final days. These and to Don, and to all the other men were mostly in their 20s and journalists around the world who 30s at the time of Danny’s kidnap- have risked their lives or their free- ping, members of the Pakistani ji- dom in the pursuit of truth. n hadi culture born after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The story we have written is the one I think Danny would have reported. The significance of what we were trying to untangle and uncover grew from an isolated murder case to a study of militancy, Islamic extremism, and terrorism in Paki- stan, with foreign policy implica- tions much larger than we imagined when we first began. Years later, Danny’s case offers important lessons to the Obama administration as it grapples with its policy toward Pakistan as a safe haven for Tali- ban, Al Qaeda, and militant fighters that U.S. forces face in the war in Afghanistan. Danny’s case was a harbinger of the issues U.S. national security officials are grappling to understand today. At the Newseum in Washington, there is an exhibit for Danny that

Key Findings

he Daniel Pearl case Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is a window into several se- is known as KSM. Trious issues that have rel- evance today to U.S. foreign policy • KSM told FBI agents in Guan- and America’s war in Afghanistan: tanamo that he personally slit the emergence of a “Punjabi Tali- Pearl’s throat and severed his ban,” made up of militants from the head to make certain he’d get the Pakistani province of Punjab; the death penalty and to exploit the role of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest murder for propaganda. Some city, as a safe haven for militants; U.S. and Pakistani officials be- and the nexus between the Paki- lieve KSM may have been as- stani militancy and Al Qaeda. The sisted by two of his nephews, case also offers important lessons Musaad Aruchi, whose where- related to problems with rule of law abouts aren’t publicly known, in Pakistan. Among the project’s and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, KSM’s more specific findings: trusted aide, who is incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. • The kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl was a multifaceted, • After 9/11, KSM designated his at times chaotic conspiracy. The young nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Pearl Project has identified 27 Ali, to be the facilitator for “shoe men who played a part in the bomber” Richard Reid. When he events surrounding the case. was kidnapped, Pearl was chas- Members of at least three differ- ing a story that a cleric, Sheik ent militant groups took part in Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, was the the crimes, including a team of facilitator. He wasn’t. Reid was kidnappers led by British-Paki- an Al Qaeda operative. stani Omar Sheikh and a team of killers led by Al Qaeda strategist • Doubts regarding KSM’s confes-

sions during “waterboarding” der video with a photo of Mo- were eased when FBI agents and hammed’s hand. CIA officials used a technique called vein-matching to compare • Nearly half of those implicated the hand of the killer in the mur- in Pearl’s abduction-murder — at

least 14 men with some alleged • In their haste to close the case, involvement — are thought to Pakistani authorities knowingly remain free. The list includes used perjured testimony to pin guards, drivers, and fixers tied to the actual act of murder on Omar the conspiracy. Sheikh and his three co-conspira-

tors. While the four were involved operatives took charge of him. in the kidnapping plan and certainly were culpable, they were • False and contradictory evidence not present when Pearl was mur- presented in Pakistan’s kidnap- dered. Others, who were present ping trial raises serious doubts and actually assisted in the brutal the convictions of Sheikh and beheading, were not charged. his three associates will stand up in currently pending appeals. • The conspirators were inept, Omar Sheikh’s defense attorney plagued by bungling plans, a fail- is also using KSM’s confession as ure to cover their tracks, and an grounds for his appeal. inability to operate cameras and computer equipment. Even the • KSM told the FBI that he was videotape of Pearl’s murder was pulled into the kidnapping by staged — replayed because the a high-level leader in Al Qaeda cameraman failed to capture the circles today, an Egyptian named original scene. Saif al-Adel, who told him to make the kidnapping an Al Qa- • Despite ample leads, U.S. and eda operation. Pakistani investigators began the case chasing the wrong suspect, • Pearl’s actual murderers will like- giving the killers time to slay ly not stand trial for their crime. Pearl and disappear. Pakistani Federal officials decided in the authorities let a key informant, summer of 2006 not to add the admitted guard Fazal Karim, go Pearl murder to charges against free and failed to follow other po- KSM in military tribunals because tential leads. they concluded that would com- plicate plans to prosecute him • Omar Sheikh, who orchestrated and four alleged accomplices in the kidnapping plot, had contem- the 9/11 attacks. KSM’s suspected plated bargaining over ransom accomplices aren’t expected to demands for Pearl’s freedom, be charged, either. One nephew but that possibility quickly faded is being tried for the 9/11 attacks, when it became known that Pearl and the whereabouts of the older was Jewish and when Al Qaida nephew aren’t publicly known. n

n the morning of May 17, 2002, Pakistani police Oinvestigator Fayyaz Khan ordered officers to dig inside a compound in the Gulzar-e-Hijri neighborhood, a poor area on Karachi’s outskirts. It was not a pleasant task. At the scene, Randall Bennett, the U.S. State Department’s regional security officer in Karachi, lit a cigarette to mask the stench of death. This was the stomach-turning culmination of the search for kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. He had been abducted nearly four months earlier on Janu- ary 23 while trying to chase down possible Pakistani connections to “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, the British Muslim man who attempted Wall Street Journal bureau chief to blow up an American Airlines jet- Daniel Pearl want to Karachi, liner over the Atlantic. Pakistan, to follow the trail of Gently, under the watchful eye of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid. a colonel in Pakistan’s intelligence Credit: The Daniel Pearl Foundation

agency, the Inter-Ser- vices Intelligence Di- rectorate, or ISI, police officers lifted their find. First: a skull four doc- tors on the scene said had been “decapitated,” the U.S. consul general, John Bauman, later wrote in a State Depart- ment cable. Then the up- per torso, still wearing the light blue track suit that Pearl’s kidnappers had him wear. Pearl’s body, cut into about 12 Daniel Pearl’s passport, photographed at an pieces, was removed. exhibit at the Newseum. Credit: Queerbubbles This outcome, sadly, came as little surprise. A gruesome videotape had circulat- he had been one of the guards hold- ed earlier, drawing worldwide atten- ing Pearl. He said he witnessed the tion, showing Pearl’s beheading by murder by three men whom he de- a man whose face the camera never scribed variously as “Arabs” or as revealed. “Balochis,” a reference to natives of Locating the remains, however, Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan prov- was a breakthrough. Pakistani police ince abutting Afghanistan and Iran. and U.S. officials for the first time had But it would be more than anoth- established a link to Pearl’s actual er year before the actual perpetrator murderers. The man who led police would say that he was the uniden- to the site, a young militant named tified man wielding the knife that Fazal Karim, sat in jail across town. killed Pearl. Picked up in connection with the That man was Al Qaeda operative bombing of the Sheraton Karachi Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Balo- Hotel on May 8, Karim told Pakistani chi raised in Kuwait, who confessed police investigator Fayyaz Khan that to the Pearl murder after being ap-

prehended by Pakistani and U.S. tainee at Guantanamo Bay awaiting agents for his alleged role as the trial for the 9/11 attacks. Neither he 9/11 mastermind. nor his accomplices, however, have The details of his confession to been charged in Pearl’s death. the CIA remain classified, but the While the U.S. government has Pearl Project has learned some de- not passed judgment on KSM’s in- tails of what he told two FBI agents, volvement in the Pearl case, it ap- Frank Pellegrino and John Mulligan, pears that Osama Bin Laden has who interviewed him in Guantana- done so. Morris Davis, former chief mo Bay in 2007. “I wanted to make prosecutor for the Guantanamo sure that I got the death penalty,” he Bay military commissions, told the said, according to a source. The FBI Pearl Project, “One of the high val- agents were part of a “clean team,” ue detainees [held at Guantanamo tasked to get material that could be Bay] told interrogators that Osama used in a criminal trial. In the inter- bin Laden was angry that KSM had view, the Pearl Project has learned, slaughtered Pearl so publicly and KSM said he was pulled into the brutally, arguing that the murder kidnapping by a high-level leader in brought unnecessary attention on Al Qaeda circles today, an Egyptian the network.” named Saif al-Adel. The failure to indict KSM ap- U.S. officials have released a tran- pears due, in part, to the fact that script of a hearing in which KSM ad- he first confessed to U.S. officials in mitted his role in the murder. His the midst of tactics known as “wa- admission is corroborated by Paki- terboarding,” according to sources stani police interrogation reports close to the interrogation. The harsh of at least two suspects involved in techniques, which human rights ac- the kidnapping. One of them is Mu- tivists describe as torture, would hammad Rasheed, a driver from the likely derail any prosecution in the northern Pakistani district of Swat, United States. tied to the militants groups. He al- To piece together the story, a fac- legedly drove a taxi, ferrying Arab ulty-student investigative reporting members of Al Qaeda around Kara- team at Georgetown University per- chi. formed hundreds of interviews with Today, KSM, as he is called by past and present law enforcement U.S. officials, is a high-value de- officials, diplomats, and intelligence

officers, as well as with relatives and lawyers of suspects, many for the first time — all of it spanning five countries. We relied as well on hundreds of documents ranging from Pakistani police and court records to FBI reports to Pearl’s e-mails and personal notes, including details about events, conversa- tions, and meetings never previously reported. While reporting in Karachi, Pakistan, Daniel We read 2,400 pages of Pearl and his wife, Mariane, stayed at the house court records chroni- of a friend and colleague, Asra Nomani. Credit: cling the trial of men Derek Henry Flood involved in the kidnapping. This effort to create the definitive and current FBI agents, and former public record of Daniel Pearl’s last and current U.S. government offi- days and the hunt for those behind cials who helped the Pearl Project, his death was sponsored by George- despite great risk to their careers town University and the Interna- and lives. Among them is Pakistani tional Consortium of Investigative police officer Fayyaz Khan, who has Journalists, a program of the non- continued to pursue those believed profit Center for Public Integrity in to be responsible in Pearl’s kidnap- Washington, D.C. Our efforts were ping and murder. In September funded by grants from the Ethics 2002, he was seriously injured when and Excellence in Journalism Foun- a mail bomb exploded in his face dation, based in Oklahoma City. in Karachi, and, in November 2010, This is a story filled with bad he narrowly missed a suicide bomb guys. But there are some good guys. attack that killed 17 people and in- They are the Pakistani cops, former jured more than 100 people, leveling

the offices of the Crime Investiga- fort in tracking down Pearl’s killers, tion Department, where he works. and some did make enormous ef- The Pakistani Taliban took credit, forts, the difficulties in investigating saying it was trying to avenge the ex- and prosecuting the case present a trajudicial detention of its members. cautionary tale about the obstacles Among the Pearl Project’s find- to realizing justice for such crimes. ings are that Pakistani and Ameri- In pointing police to the remains, can authorities missed key oppor- Karim had a horrific story to tell tunities to develop witnesses and which stretched from Pearl’s ter- forensic evidence that might earlier rifying days in custody to the final have led to KSM, his two alleged ac- moment of his life, when a video complices in the murder, and many camera malfunction prompted his others who allegedly had roles in the captors to re-enact the killing. Paki- kidnapping. In all, the project identi- stani investigators passed on word fied 27 men who were involved in of this informant to Bennett, the events surrounding Pearl’s kidnap- State Department’s security officer, ping and murder. Fourteen of the but, U.S. officials say, they refused men are free. While some of these to let him interview their prisoner. men’s names have floated around Karim’s emergence, it turns out, with aliases, signified by the “@” was a problem. By that time, police sign in Pakistan police reports, the already had a prime suspect in jail Pearl Project established their real named Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, identities, identifying home address- the radical who indeed orchestrated es and family members. In some the kidnapping but was out of the cases, there are alternate spellings picture — in fact, was in another city to their Arabic and Urdu names. — at the time Pearl was beheaded. “Justice wasn’t served,” Pearl’s Karim’s account threw a wrench mother, Ruth Pearl, told the Pearl into the strategy Pakistani police Project. and prosecutors had mapped out to The handling of Fazal Karim, convict Omar Sheikh and three co- the young militant who led police defendants. Pakistani authorities, in to Pearl’s grave, is emblematic of a series of decisions which Ameri- the shortcomings that plagued the can officials accepted, didn’t bring investigation. While U.S. and Paki- charges against Karim and failed to stani officials vowed to spare no ef- follow up his leads to avoid draw-

Jameel Yusuf, one of the last people to see Pearl alive. In 2002, he was director of the Citzen-Police Liaison Committee and helped with the effort to find Pearl. Credit: Kira Zalan

ing attention to his information and newspaper quoted Bashir as say- undermining the court case against ing he suspected Nomani, born in Sheikh and his co-defendants. India, of working for the Indian in- To make matters even more com- telligence agency, the Research and plicated, Sheikh’s defense attorney, Analysis Wing, or RAW. Rai Bashir Ahmad, who is often By some accounts, the Pakistanis known as Rai Bashir, implicated didn’t want to jeopardize an already Pearl’s friend Asra Nomani, who lat- problematic case against Sheikh at a er became a co-director of the Pearl time when they were under pressure Project, in the kidnapping because to show Washington that they were Pearl was staying with her at the being tough on terrorism. In fact, time of the kidnapping. A Pakistani Sheikh seemed like something of a

poster boy for Pakistan to show off ple that previously was not possible, its law enforcement efforts, since he and to ensure a full accounting on was already under indictment in the Pearl’s behalf. United States for a 1994 kidnapping And in addition to getting at of an American in India. the truth of what happened to one Had investigators pursued earlier journalist, this investigation’s find- clues such as Karim’s, they might ings serve as a primer for how this have discovered what the Pearl region’s web of militancy activities Project’s student-reporters can now has broad geo-political significance. put on the record: four men tried The Pearl case demonstrates the and convicted of Pearl’s murder in dangerous consequences of an ex- Pakistan were involved in the kid- tremist interpretation of Islam to napping but not in the killing. Those Pakistan and the world. Nearly all responsible for the murder have not of the men believed to be involved yet faced justice. in the Pearl kidnapping and murder Not only was Khalid Sheikh Mo- were members of sectarian militant hammed the alleged killer, but his organizations that had cropped up two chief accomplices may have in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s, been his own nephews, according influenced by Wahhabism, the dog- to U.S. and Pakistani officials famil- matic, fundamentalist brand of Is- iar with the case: Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, lam prevalent in Saudi Arabia, and, now a Guantanamo Bay detainee similarly, Deobandism, an Indian- alleged to have sent money to the born school of thought that has 9/11 hijackers at the behest of uncle taken root among militants and Is- KSM, and Musaad Aruchi, an alleged lamists in Pakistan. Al Qaeda operative whose where- In a 2002 diplomatic cable, Shel- abouts have been unknown since don Rapoport, acting U.S. consul he was arrested in Karachi in a joint general in Karachi, made a reference Pakistani-CIA raid in 2004. to these groups as fundamentalist, Why is all this news after nine calling them “jihadi/fundo organiza- years? While much has been written tions,” Understanding the ideologi- and broadcast about the Pearl case, cal underpinnings of people waging the passage of time has made it pos- war against the United States is crit- sible to fill in some of the gaps, to ical to deterrence. get access to information and peo- A full investigation of the plot

also offers a window into militancy in Pakistan — particularly the nexus of homegrown extremists, the Af- ghan Taliban, and Al Qaeda — that has grown to become an ever-larger threat to the stability of the nuclear- armed nation. The murder was the first known operation in which Pak- istani militants collaborated with Al Qaeda. In the time since Pearl’s death, the interaction has become more commonplace, and the situation has grown more volatile in Pakistan, threatening both stability in the region and the safety of Americans and others around the world. Many of the men involved in the Pearl case hailed from the Pun- jab province that sits in the country’s political, military, and cultural The Daniel Pearl Case is a roadmap heartland, and they are a harbinger to understanding the geography of of a domestic and global threat that militancy in Pakistan. some Pakistani officials are just now Credit: University of Texas reluctantly starting to acknowledge, “the Punjabi Taliban.” the killing rampage in Mumbai in late Since Pearl’s murder, Pakistan 2008, to the attack on the Sri Lankan has been dubbed “the most danger- cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan, ous place in the world,” Pakistani in March 2009, to an attempted car and U.S. intelligence officials have bomb in New York’s Times Square nabbed key Taliban and Al Qaeda in May 2010. Last year, the Commit- figures in Karachi, Pakistan, and tee to Protect Journalists declared Pakistani militant groups have been that Pakistan is the most dangerous tied to brutal assaults on civilians country in the world for journalists both in Pakistan and abroad, from to work.

Further, this is an effort to high- has seen ad hoc justice with sus- light the need for follow-through pected co-conspirators never pros- and accountability when a journalist ecuted. “As regards the suspects is murdered. The death of a reporter never charged,” he said, “I am sure such as Pearl is a loss not only to his they have been bumped off so as family and friends, but to the much, not to compromise the proceedings much wider circle of people who and judgments earlier given by the rely on such fair and inquisitive jour- courts.” Indeed, in a report released nalists to search out the truth and to in December 2010, the U.S. State De- help explain events far away. Gov- partment said that extrajudicial kill- ernments may be eager to close the ings are a problem in Pakistan. books on such cases, but a failure to Pearl’s story demonstrates the energetically pursue the criminals risks that journalists face in doing may only raise the risks for other the vital work of reporting on terror- journalists facing similar perils. ism, delving into a radical culture in Pearl was actively trying to report which their crucial independent role on and untangle the many threads provides little, if any, protection. of militancy activities in the region and spent his last hour of freedom It is now clear that Pearl, in trying in that pursuit, interviewing Jameel to report on the dark world of terror- Yusuf, a Karachi businessman, about ism, had the tragic misfortune of be- the effectiveness of judicial and po- ing lured into the hands of men who lice reforms the U.S. was attempting had already well established their to put in place in Pakistan. Yusuf, credentials for ruthlessness, terror, then-chief of the Citizens-Police Li- and murder — men linked to kid- aison Committee, a group formed in nappings of Americans and others, 1989 after a wave of kidnappings hit the 1993 World Trade Center bomb- Karachi, was involved trying to find ing, the 1995 plot to blow up jetliners Pearl. Reform continues to be badly over the Pacific, the 9/11 attacks, and needed, Yusuf told the Pearl Project. the attempted jetliner “shoe bomb- But he said, “Sadly, this has not been ing,” among other misdeeds. effectively and beneficially liai- The young journalist wanted to soned by the U.S. government with shine a light on that world. With their Pakistani counterpart.” Thus, Danny gone, we are continuing his he said, for example, the Pearl case work through the Pearl Project. n

3KEY FINDINGS SHOW CONTENTS PART 24 The Truth Left Behind | Part 2 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 25 Baiting the Trap By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Katie Balestra, Kira Zalan, Mary Cirincione, and Margo Humphries

n September 11, 2001, as a quieter Islamabad, the capital, hijacked jetliners slammed where he hoped officials and other Ointo the World Trade Center sources could give him their take on and the Pentagon, Daniel Pearl was who organized the terrorist attacks 7,500 miles away in Bihar, India. in America. One of those sources Pearl, South Asia bureau chief for was Khalid Khawaja, a former offi- The Wall Street Journal, was hor- cer with Pakistan’s powerful intel- rified as he watched replays of the ligence agency, the Inter-Services attacks flash on his hotel television. Intelligence Directorate, known The next day, he flew to Karachi, as the ISI. He was also a self-pro- the chaotic port city that is Paki- claimed companion of bin Laden stan’s commercial center, because during the days when both Pakistan he suspected the trail of responsi- and the U.S. were providing semi- bility might lead to Al Qaeda chief covert military aid to Afghan mili- Osama bin Laden and his associates tants fighting Soviet occupation. in neighboring Afghanistan. Khawaja was something of a Pearl recognized the dangers windfall for Pearl, although his con- of being an American journalist in nections highlight what remains a a city plagued by criminal gangs, serious concern among U.S. coun- growing Islamic extremism, and ter-terrorism officials — the degree violence. On September 17, 2001, to which there are ties between he wrote lightheartedly to a friend: ISI and militant Islamists, includ- “Hi from Karachi, which would be a ing the Taliban in Afghanistan. “I great city if we weren’t scared to go got hooked up with one of OBL’s out of the hotel.” buddies, who has been taking me From there, Pearl flew north to around to see the people who are

secretly pro-OBL,” Pearl wrote in a September 20 e-mail. “I’m writing a story about how everybody here thinks the Jews did it. Bound to piss everybody off, but I think people should know what people in other parts of the world REALLY think, and why. Right?” That was the kind of enthusiasm that Pearl brought to his reporting. Born on October 10, 1963, in Princ- eton, N.J., he was the son of Jewish immigrants from Israel. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford Uni- versity, Pearl got his first reporting gigs in Massachusetts, at the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle, before moving up to The Wall Street Journal in 1990. In 2000, he moved with his wife, Mariane, to Mumbai, India, to take Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistani intelligence officer and a self- on new challenges as the Journal’s proclaimed companion of Osama South Asia bureau chief. bin Laden, was a source to Pearl. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Khawaja was kidnapped and killed Pearl e-mailed Bob Baer, a former in early 2010 by a group cliaming CIA station chief, asking: “Who do to be Pakistani militants. you think did it?” Baer reminded Credit: Derek Henry Flood Pearl of an earlier conversation about a suspected terrorist, a “Kha- lid Sheikh Hammed,” whom Baer stories on the stirring of dangerous had heard dodged the FBI in Qatar militancy. He wrote about Pakistani some years earlier. The name didn’t scientists accused of passing nu- ring any bells with Pearl — though clear secrets to extremist groups. it would turn out to be a harbinger. Then, another big terrorism story In Pakistan, Pearl chased down broke. On December 22, 2001, a

Muslim convert, Rich- ard Reid, tried to blow up a jet flying over the Atlantic — by igniting explosives in his shoes. There were initial hints that Reid, who quickly became known as the “shoe bomber,” had ties to Pakistan. A young American journalist working for The Boston Globe in Islam- abad, Farah Stockman, got a tip. Her local “fix- A press report indicated that Richard Reid had er,” Pakistani reporter stayed at the house of Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Rana Mubashir, intro- Gilani. Daniel Pearl thought he was going to an duced her to a man who interview with Gilani when he was kidnapped. trolled the Islamabad He is pictured here during a 2002 interview Marriott hotel pitching with the late George Crile of 60 Minutes II. stories to foreign media. Credit: 60 Minutes II The man, a government official, was something of a “publicity whore,” Stockman described as a terrorist group as re- later said. “He was a person that cently as 2000. people trusted,” she added, though It seemed credible that Reid, “his motives were something I the son of a black Jamaican father never completely understood.” In and a white British mother, might an interview at his home, the man be among the disciples of Gilani, told Stockman he believed Reid who has followers among African- had stayed with a radical Pakistani Americans as well as Pakistanis. cleric, Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gi- Stockman flew with her fixer to the lani, head of a group called Jamaat eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, ul-Fuqra (Community of the Poor) where Gilani has a home. She went that the U.S. State Department had door-to-door, showing a photo of

Reid. Down the street from Gilani’s ing, “Did you see Boston Globe home, she said she found a relative story on U.S. officials trying to tie of Gilani’s who told her Reid indeed Richard Reid to Sheikh Mubarik Ali had been at the house. Gilani of Pakistan? Would be pretty On January 6, 2002, The Boston big news if true; I’m about to meet Globe ran a page-one story by Stock- with a Gilani associate here.” man tying Reid to Gilani: “Bomb On January 11, 2002, Pearl and Probe Eyes Pakistan Links. Extrem- Farooqi went to the Akbar Inter- ist May Have Influenced Reid.” The national Hotel in Rawalpindi, near story indicated U.S. officials were Islamabad, to meet with Omar eying Gilani, but it also had the ca- Sheikh, who introduced himself us- veat that Khalid Khawaja, a former ing a fake name, Chaudrey Bashir Inter-Services Intelligence officer Ahmad Shabbir. By whatever name, Pearl had interviewed, was a friend he would have seemed like a prom- of Gilani who believed the cleric had ising source with a sophistication no ties to the shoe bomber. and reassuring manner reflect- Pearl wanted to take the story ing his education at a British prep to the next level by locating and in- school and the London School of terviewing the elusive Gilani. With Economics before his turn to radi- the help of his fixer, local journal- cal Islam. ist Asif Farooqi, Pearl sought to From that moment on, however, find contacts who could put him in Pearl was heading into a trap. touch with the radical cleric. What Pearl had no way of know- As word spread through Islamist ing was that Gilani wasn’t mixed circles, among those who heard of up with Reid, as investigators later Pearl’s interest was Omar Sheikh, concluded. In an interview with a radical already experienced in FBI agents who had been in Guan- kidnapping, who later told police tanamo Bay, the Pearl Project has that he initially suspected that the learned, Khalid Sheikh Moham- inquisitive American might be a med, the alleged mastermind of Western spy. Sheikh passed word 9/11, said Reid was working with Al though an intermediary, Moham- Qaeda’s military chief, Mohammed mad Hashim Qadir, that he could Atef, a somber Egyptian strategist arrange an interview with Gilani. whose daughter was married to Pearl wrote to a colleague, ask- one of Osama bin Laden’s sons. In

The exterior of the Akbar International Hotel where Daniel Pearl met Omar Sheikh, the alleged mastermind behind his kidnapping. Credit: Derek Henry Flood

November 2001, as the U.S. shelled shave.” He said Reid responded, Afghanistan, KSM said Atef was “I’ve been a drug dealer.” killed, and a top al-Qaeda leader, KSM was incredulous at what either Ayman Al-Zawahiri or Saif an amateur Reid was. “Whether al-Adel sent Reid to KSM; the hap- you are picked up for being a drug less young man arrived in Karachi dealer or a terrorist, you still end to meet KSM. “I was given all his up in jail,” KSM said he told Reid, crap,” KSM told the FBI. He didn’t according to people familiar with want anything to do with Reid, said the interview. people familiar with the interview. In Karachi, KSM handed off Reid “He said he looked like trouble.” to someone he could trust — his KSM said he told Reid, “You better young 20-something nephew, Ali

Abdul Aziz Ali — with instructions on the streets of Pakistan. to give Reid money and teach him On January 9, 2002, two days be- how to send emails. The nephew al- fore Pearl’s fateful meeting at the legedly had already proven himself Akbar International Hotel, the U.S. capable with other delicate work: ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy wiring money to the 9/11 hijack- Chamberlin, met with Pakistan’s ers. KSM told the FBI he didn’t like foreign secretary Inam ul Haque “to Western operatives because they press for the rendition of Sheikh felt they knew better. Omar Saeed” on kidnapping charg- Pearl knew none of this. He also es, according to a U.S. State Depart- had no way of knowing that his new ment diplomatic cable. (In official source, ready to introduce him to documents, the U.S. government Gilani, was an experienced kidnap- sometimes refers to Omar Sheikh per. Pearl was doing what reporters as “Sheikh Omar Saeed.”) do, developing sources and trying Chamberlin didn’t know that to break a big story. He flew off to Sheikh had already set into motion Karachi for a promised interview another kidnapping plot, this time with Gilani. an American journalist as his tar- Coincidentally, Omar Sheikh get. n was not entirely off America’s ra- dar. Weeks earlier, U.S. prosecutors had obtained a sealed indictment of Sheikh for the 1994 kidnapping of an American tourist, Bela Nuss, in India. Sheikh had been caught and jailed in India for the kidnapping, but was freed in a swap deal for passengers aboard a hijacked 1999 Indian Airlines flight. “It was one of the saddest days in my life,” said G. Parthasarathy, India’s high commis- sioner to Pakistan at the time. In- side the government of India, he argued against the exchange, saying it would put hardened militants back

3PART 1 SHOW CONTENTS PART 34 The Truth Left Behind | Part 3 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 31 Trapping the Journalist By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Caitlin McDevitt, Shilpika Das, Katie Balestra, Kira Zalan

n Monday, January 21, 2002, Daniel Pearl, South OAsia bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal, walked out into the afternoon sun, following a visit to a sonogram clinic in Islamabad, Pakistan, with his pregnant wife, Mariane. Beaming, he sent a text message to a friend: “It’s a boy!!!!!” He even had a name for his son: Adam. That same day, 700 miles to the south, a plot was taking shape that would rob Pearl of the chance to Omar Sheikh was already experi- ever see his son. A young man by enced in kidnapping when he passed the name of Omar Sheikh flew into word to Pearl that he could arrange Karachi, Pakistan’s chaotic commer- an interview with Sheik Mubarak cial hub, that morning to assemble Ali Shah Gilani. Credit: FBI a kidnapping team. He began with a series of clandestine meetings at innocuous locations, including at a It was Sheikh’s latest venture McDonald’s restaurant, tapping a lo- into the ruthless business of kid- cal network of militants who would napping. He had been jailed in In- provide the muscle for his scheme. dia in 1994 for allegedly kidnap-

ping Western tourists, including an American, on behalf of a militant Pakistani group. He had been freed in 1999 in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines plane. The United States was pressing Pakistan for Sheikh’s extradition, even as he slipped cool- ly through the streets of Karachi putting his next conspiracy into place. Sheikh Mohommad Adil met with Omar Sheikh at But, rather than be- the Stadium Road McDonald’s in Karachi to plot ing a professional op- Pearl’s kidnapping. Credit: Derek Henry Flood eration, Pakistani police and the FBI later discovered, the plot to kidnap Pearl of India’s independence from Brit- was simple and at times even bum- ish rule and the partition of the na- bling, with operatives struggling tion into two countries. For most of with the most simple of matters, its first decades, Pakistan slipped such as how to use a Polaroid cam- between military and civilian rule era to photograph their hostage. but it was mostly ruled according Still, the plot offers a window to the secular vision of its founder, into the growing militancy in Paki- Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The men in stan — particularly the nexus of the Pearl plot were mostly born in Punjabi militants, the Afghan Tali- the 1960s and 1970s and many had ban and Al Qaeda — that has grown roots in the northeast Punjab prov- to become an ever-larger threat to ince heartland where radicalism is the stability of the nuclear-armed fostered by an austere interpreta- nation and the U.S. war effort in Af- tion of Sunni Islam called Deoband- ghanistan. ism. In 1977, during their formative In 1947, Pakistan was born out years, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq

took over Pakistan, leading a strict ers who subsequently took control Islamist movement, funded in part of Afghanistan. by the government of Saudi Arabia, Now in their 20s and 30s, they exporting its rigid Wahhabi ideolo- were eager foot soldiers in what gy to the world to counter the 1979 some regarded as a growing indus- Iranian Shia revolution. try, Jihad Inc., many of them living The men came of age in the in the same dicey Karachi neighbor- 1980s just as Afghan fighters, fu- hood of Nazimabad and listening to eled by their Islamic fervor and sermons from radicalized imams at covert aid from Pakistan and the neighborhood mosques. United States, were defeating the “They are sons of darkness,” mighty Soviet military. After the says Massoud Ansari, a Pakistani Soviet withdrawal in 1989, an al- journalist who writes about radical- phabet soup of Pakistani militant ism. groups with acronyms such as These young men were prime HUM (Harkat ul-Mujahideen), LeJ candidates to be subcontractors in (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi), JeM (Jaish-e- Omar Sheikh’s dark scheme. He had Mohammed), SSP (Sipah-e-Sahaba met Pearl two weeks earlier in a Pakistan), HUI (Harkat-ul-Islami- hotel in Rawalpindi, outside Islam- ya), and LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) took abad, pretending to be a disciple of off in the Pakistani province of Pun- a Pakistani religious leader, Sheik jab, fueled by the Islamist transfor- Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani. Pearl mation of Pakistan. One of these wanted to interview Gilani, chasing groups, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, later a Boston Globe story that claimed became closely linked to the Pearl Gilani had ties to “shoe bomber” case and is part of a loose collec- Richard Reid. tion of militant groups dubbed the Sheikh set a trap for January 23, Punjabi Taliban. Many of the young when he told Pearl he could have a men involved in the Pearl case rare interview with Gilani in Kara- joined these groups and trained chi. Pakistan police reports, based at Afghanistan-Pakistan border on interrogations with various camps tied to Pakistan’s spy agen- suspects, describe what happened cy, the Inter-Services Intelligence next. Directorate, and were drawn to the Now, arriving in Karachi, Sheikh radical views of the Taliban fight- had just two days to put his opera-

From left: Amjad Hussain Farooqi, Asim Ghafoor, and Asif Ramzi all were allegedly implicated in helping Omar Sheikh plot Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping. Credit: Pakistani Police

tion in place. Could he find the right group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which men? Would they keep his secret? would be instrumental in doing A friend from militant circles, Sheikh’s dirty work on the streets Amjad Farooqi, 28, had promised to of Karachi. help but only if the operation was At the airport, Sheikh was met by in Karachi, where he could tap into Salman Saqib, 27, a militant he had a trustworthy network. A Punjabi, met years earlier in a training camp Farooqi had great connections in in Afghanistan. The day before, he militant circles. Pakistani police had called Saqib to pick him up at said Farooqi had been involved in the airport. The ringleader skipped the 1999 Indian Airlines hijacking the introductions. He wanted his that set Sheikh free from jail in In- operational cells separate, so Saqib dia. Sheikh arrived in Karachi with knew Ghafoor only as “the fat guy.” a middleman: Asim Ghafoor, about Born in Multan, the fourth largest 28, a deputy in a Deobandi militant city in Punjab province, Saqib had

From left: Attaur Rehman, Mati-ur Rehman, and Faisal Bhatti allegedly helped arrange the logistics in Pearl’s kidnapping. None has been prosecuted in the Pearl case. Credit: Pakistani Police

a physics degree from a college in important meeting. There, Sheikh Bahawalpur, Punjab, a notorious met the deputy leader of Lashkar- breeding ground for militancy. In e-Jhangvi in Karachi, Asif Ramzi, a the 1990s, he joined Harkat ul-Mu- 20-something bespectacled bomb- jahideen, training in the Pakistani making expert with a scruffy beard. frontier town of Miranshah and Ramzi, in turn, said he would ar- fighting with the Taliban. He moved range for Sheikh to meet his boss to Karachi after a gunshot left bul- outside the prestigious Aga Khan let fragments in his hip. University Hospital. First, according to the Pakistan The group left with a carryout or- police reports, Saqib ferried the men der of biryani, a Pakistani rice dish, to an uncle’s home where Sheikh arriving at the home of an aunt of called his old friend, Farooqi, who Sheikh’s at about 12:30 p.m., be- told him to head to a local hangout, fore heading to Aga Khan Hospital. Student Biryani restaurant, for an There, at about 1:15 p.m., Ramzi

introduced Sheikh to his Lashkar-e- Pearl in captivity. Before arriving in Jhangvi boss, Attaur Rehman, who Karachi, he had called a man he’d pulled up on a Honda CD 70 motor- met the year before at a training cycle. camp in Afghanistan: Sheikh Mo- Sheikh later told police he was hammad Adil. He was a police con- impressed by Rehman as someone stable — but also a secret member who could pull off the tactical de- of Harkat ul-Mujahideen, one of the tails. Rehman said he had a place to Islamic militant groups responsible hide Pearl, but wouldn’t say where. for the December 1999 hijacking of It would compromise the location. Indian Airlines Flight 814 that was Did Rehman need any money? No, used to free Sheikh and two other according to one interrogation re- men from prison in India. port with a suspect involved in the Sheikh had told Adil that he had kidnapping. But Rehman later told “jihadi work” for him. Adil asked police that Sheikh gave him 50,000 him for about $115, for “a special rupees in “advance money,” worth medical treatment for his sister,” he about $830. Could he find him an later told FBI special agents John English speaker for the rendezvous Mulligan and Michael Dick. Adil with Pearl? Yes, he could. picked up the money from a courier Also allegedly at the meeting: Sheikh sent to Ashraf ul Madaris, a a young militant named Mati-ur religious school tied to fund rais- Rehman, according to Pakistani po- ing for a charity, Al Rashid Trust, lice. Importantly, Rehman later al- and later, a new charity, Al-Akthar legedly becomes involved in other Trust, both allegedly supporting the high profile incidents, landing on Taliban and Al Qaeda, according to Pakistan’s Most Wanted List as a the U.S. Treasury Department. The suspect in the attempted assassina- militant-cop’s request for money tions of Pakistani leaders Gen. Per- for medical help, if true, reveals vez Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz, as the economic dynamic in militant well as a May 2002 bombing at the work. In Karachi, Sheikh met Adil Sheraton Karachi Hotel. at a McDonald’s in the Nazimabad It was just mid-day, and the plot neighborhood. Adil agreed to help. was falling into place. Next stop was a hotel in Gulistan- Now, Sheikh still needed to line e-Jauhar, a Karachi neighborhood, up somebody to pick up photos of where Sheikh waited for the Eng-

lish speaker to arrive. After a while, Rehman, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi boss, said the meeting would have to wait until morning. A good day’s work done, Sheikh paid a house call to the home of a killed militant. Before calling it a night at the home of a sympathizer, he prayed. Would all of the pieces fall into place? He just had another day and a half. Meanwhile, for Pearl, it was business as usual at his guesthouse in Islamabad. His bosses cleared Sheikh Mohammad Adil was a police constable, but also a a story proposal he had pitched member of Harkat ul-Mujahideen, called “AFGHANPIE.” In his pro- one of the Islamic militant groups posal, he wrote: “Let’s roll out the responsible fornte 1999 hijacking old regional map and look at how of an Indian Airlines flight. He each of Afghanistan’s neighbors received a life sentence for his role is jockeying for a share of the $10 in Pearl’s kidnapping. Credit: FBI billion reconstruction.” He wanted to chase a story about Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian mobster who ately been calling their “fetus.” “We had allegedly found sanctuary in found out today our fetus is male!” Karachi, but he was only as far as he wrote. “And normal, more im- reading old articles about the man. portantly. There’s a very good clinic He asked his research assistant in here in Islamabad that offers sex Mumbai to look for information selection — but that’s a whole oth- about the mobster’s financial clout er story.” in Pakistan. As a side note to his editor, Pearl Pearl shared with his editor the added: “Still trying to get a break on exciting news from a sonogram of Reid. I meet Sheikh Gilani Wednes- the baby his wife, Mariane, was day. Going to Karachi tomorrow for carrying, which he had affection- that ….” n

s they had done together Aso many times before, Daniel Pearl and his wife, Mariane, headed out to an airport. They first met in Paris, when Pearl was based in London, and had been married for less than a year when he was sent by The Wall Street Journal to cover South Asia in 2000. Since then, they often traveled together, Sheikh Mohammad Adil met with Omar Sheikh avoiding the frequent under the Baloch Colony Bridge in Karachi, where separations that can be he received instructions about his role in Pearl’s a strain on married life kidnapping. Credit: Derek Henry Flood for a foreign correspondent. And now, expecting their first child, their time togeth- about an interview set for 7 p.m. the er was more important than ever. next evening with Sheik Mubarak On this morning, Tuesday, Janu- Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani religious ary 22, 2002, the Pearls flew from Is- leader who reportedly was tied to lamabad to Karachi. He was excited “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.

In Karachi, there were a lot of preparations being made for the meeting, but not of a kind Pearl an- ticipated. Omar Sheikh, a Pakistani-British man arrested for kidnappings in In- dia years earlier, was heading to a meeting under a busy overpass, the Baloch Colony Bridge, to find just the right English-speaking Paki- stani to draw Pearl into his trap. The day before, Sheikh had bur- rowed into the dark network of criminals and thugs who acted as leaders in the Karachi militancy, according to Pakistani police files. In just a day’s time, with the right Sajid Jabbar, an English speaker introductions, he was wired. But in who helped lure Pearl into the trap. the business of jihad, leaders alone Credit: Pakistani police can’t pull off an operation. It takes low-level hired guns, some of them influenced by ideology, but others crime he was used to doing, he an- just trying to make some money. swered: “Against America.” Sheikh Those were the people Sheikh sized him up for the role of “Imtiaz needed to recruit that day. The first Siddiqui,” who would be Pearl’s candidate arrived in a white car contact for the promised interview driven by Attaur Rehman, chief of the next day. Only 23, he was bald- the militant Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in ing, and his alias was “old man.” He Karachi. He was Sajid Jabbar, the had a split in his eyebrows. Could English speaker that Sheikh so des- he fool Pearl? He said he would. perately needed. Jabbar had joined Sheikh gave the men a final Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and trained in briefing and introduced Rehman to Afghanistan after graduating from his rogue cop, a man by the name high school and, then, college. of Sheikh Mohammad Adil. When Asked later by police what kind of Sheikh had first asked him for help,

Adil requested about $115 to help found him.” He now had his tech an ailing sister. Sheikh had given it support. to him. Now, Sheikh had a job for Sheikh sent them out on a key er- him: When the time was right, he rand: to buy a Polaroid camera and would pick up photos of Pearl in two film cartridges for about $50. captivity from Rehman. In effect, Saqib protested, “I have never pur- Adil was the cut-out to keep the chased a camera.” Sheikh assured operational cells separate, provid- him the job was simple enough, ing a break between the armed men and the two cousins set off by taxi who would hold Pearl hostage and to Saddar Electronic Shop. A little the messengers who would send later, camera in hand, they headed ransom e-mails. Even if Adil or the back to Sheikh’s aunt’s house. How- e-mailers got caught, they wouldn’t ever, no one knew how to work the be able to lead authorities to Pearl. camera. The cousins promised to Adil agreed, and they settled on read the instructions and figure it Sabeel Wali Masjid, a mosque, as the out. drop-off point for the photos. While On the front lawn, Sheikh told mosques in the region are some- Saqib that Adil, the rogue cop, times considered “no-go” zones for would contact him with a delivery. soldiers and police, militants often Most of the men dispersed, but not used them as safe havens. before the cop led the group in the Next, Sheikh turned his attention early afternoon prayer. to setting up the cell that would tell The cousins stayed behind. the world of Pearl’s abduction and Sheikh placed two pieces of paper the kidnappers’ demands. At 10 in front of them: his ransom note a.m., Sheikh called Salman Saqib, in English and in Urdu. Sheikh told a young militant with shrapnel them to read the note “with full at- in his hip, and told him to come tention” and not to “carry out any to Sheikh’s aunt’s house. Around amendments.” He wanted them e- noon, Saqib walked in with a young- mailed to journalists. er cousin, Fahad Naseem, an unem- The younger cousin later told po- ployed computer programmer. lice he was excited to have Sheikh’s Sheikh responded with enthusi- trust. “He said that if I helped them asm: “God has helped me. I was in in this job God would reward me,” search of such a person and have the cousin said. “This was a big job

and I was going to be part of this computers for the job. The cousins big job by sending the e-mail, he would later wish they had listened. told me.” He asked Sheikh why he That evening, between 5 p.m. wanted to kidnap Pearl. “He an- and 6 p.m., Mati-ur Rehman, a mem- swered that Daniel Pearl was in fact ber of a militant group, Harkat-ul- a Jew working against the Muslims Jihad-e-Islami, showed up with Mo- in Pakistan,” he told police. It’s not hammad Sohail, 34, a thin bearded clear if Naseem recollected this man. Born in Karachi, he had a accurately or he learned of Pearl’s college degree and, he later told background later from a Pakistani police, was a follower of the strict newspaper account. Deobandi school of thought in Is- When he probed Sheikh for some lam. He made about $240 a month, details of the kidnapping plan, Nas- supporting his wife, Hammeda, and eem said, “He admonished me and their four children. The cousins said to limit myself only to things showed the two men how to work I was told to perform otherwise I the Polaroid camera. The ransom would create problems for myself.” note cell was falling into place. Saqib later told the FBI that he In another part of town, Attaur protested “that it was not the right Rehman, the local boss of Lashkar- thing to do” and a kidnapping “will e-Jhangvi, had to make good on a cause a bad name to be given to promise to Sheikh to find a safe both Pakistan and the Mujahadeen.” house to keep Pearl in captivity. In response, he said, Sheikh He reached into his mental Rolo- replied threateningly, “I’ve given dex and plucked out the name of a you my secret. This is a big thing. hired gun, Fazal Karim, 33. Born in Remember, I can locate you any- the city of Rahim Yar Khan in south where!” Sheikh quieted him with Punjab, Karim had worked for Har- religious arguments, saying, “If you kat ul-Mujahideen, the militant do this thing God will reward you.” group to which Sheikh belonged. In Saqib relented. Still, there was a the 1980s, as a teenager, he trained certain amateur hour character to and fought in Afghanistan against all this. Sheikh may have realized the Soviets. After Afghanistan, this himself, for instance, warning Karim went to Karachi and worked the cousins against simple mistakes as an electrician before landing a like using one of their personal job as a driver for a local business-

Fazal Karim, allegedly one of the guards who held Daniel Pearl in captivity. Arrested in connection with a 2002 bombing of the Karachi Sheraton, Karim told Pakistani police where to find Pearl’s remains. Credit: Pakistani police

man, Saud Memon, earning about find a solution to this.” $100 a month to support his wife Karim later told police he thought and five daughters. of a compound his boss owned out- Rehman tasked Karim with find- side town in a remote neighborhood ing a place to hold their expected called Ahsanabad. It was relatively hostage. “There is this big Ameri- isolated with only a madrassa, or can,” Rehman told Karim, accord- religious school, nearby. Rehman ing to Pakistan police reports, and Karim headed over to the com- “and we need to kidnap him. In ex- pound, which was surrounded by a change, they might free some pris- boundary wall, set off from other oners in Cuba …. I don’t have any buildings. Inside, there was a small place to keep him, and you should cinderblock building, an outhouse,

and a courtyard. Rehman blessed the location. Sheikh From: sima shabbir had his safe house. [mailto:[email protected]] In early questioning by po- Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 lice, Karim tried to keep his To: Pearl, Danny boss out of it. He told police Subject: Mr. Imtiaz Siddique that he only told his employer that people from his vil- Dear Mr. Pearl, lage were coming to Karachi I hope you are in excellent health and for work and needed a place spirits. Shaikh Saab is expecting you at 7 p.m. on Wednesday and hopefully you to stay. At first, he said, his will get at least half an hour with him, boss balked, but then relent- plus some time to speak to the mureeds ed. In a subsequent version, staying with him if you wish. When you though, Karim said Memon get to Karachi please contact Mr. Imtiaz was directly involved in the Siddique 0300-2170244 who will arrange to meet you and take you there. scheme in meetings at his home in the Paposh Nagar I am sure you will gain a lot from the neighborhood of Nazimabad, meeting. Do tell me all the details. volunteering, first, his own Look forward to hearing from you, Adaab, home and, then, the remote Bashir. compound. The landowner’s brother, Omar Sheikh used a fake persona to send Mehmood Memon, told the Pearl this e-mail, promising to connect him Pearl Project that his brother with mureeds, or “students,” of Gilani. didn’t know his compound was being used for the kidnapping. He said that his brother Rasheed, a driver who ferried Arab was innocent, involved only in a members of Al Qaeda around Kara- charity, Al-Rashid Trust. But that chi, said a police official. charity had a checkered record. Af- Now, the time was coming to ter 9/11, the United States said that draw Pearl to his abductors. Sheikh it funneled money to Al Qaeda. continued his ruse, sending Pearl Also involved in some of the an e-mail from a fake persona, meetings laying out the logistics for promising to connect him with mu- Pearl’s kidnapping was Muhammad reeds, or “students,” of Gilani.

Little could Pearl know that the Karachi when his phone rang. It man was just across town, schem- was Rehman, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ing. That evening, Jabbar, the bald- boss. He told him: Get out to the ing militant playing the role of “Im- safe house immediately. Karim told tiaz Siddique,” talked with Pearl him he didn’t have a ride, so Rehm- by phone for three minutes, long an fetched him on his Honda CD 70 enough to confirm arrangements for motorcycle and they drove out to- the next day’s supposed interview. gether, arriving just before the late On Wednesday, January 23, Pearl afternoon prayer. awakened with his wife in the home Four men waited, anxiously. They of a friend from the Wall Street Jour- were the guards that Rehman had nal, Asra Nomani, who later became assembled over the last couple of co-director of the Pearl Project. It days. He told the men, “Today the was a day that would end in betray- job will get done,” before taking off al. on his motorcycle, leaving the men Around 11 a.m., his local “fixer,” a behind to guard the hideaway. journalist, arrived late after getting At about the same time, Pearl lost, and they set off for Pearl’s in- was meeting with Randall Bennett, terviews. regional security officer at the U.S. Around the same time, less than Consulate in Karachi. Pearl asked: a mile away at his aunt’s house, How safe would it be to meet Gi- Sheikh had a final meeting with the lani? Bennett cautioned him to meet militant with shrapnel in his hip only in a public place. It was advice and his younger cousin. Sheikh told that Pearl would have wished he had them, “I am going.” His plan was to heeded, but he knew that he might get on a plane out of town. be driven to a madrassa, or religious Giving them about $350, Sheikh school, to do the interview. laid out his instructions: Send out Later in the day, Pearl zipped the ransom notes “word for word” back to Nomani’s home. He was ex- and, again, do not use your own cited about something he’d learned: computers. the Internet service provider that In another part of town, Karim, supported the e-mail address to the driver-militant, was working which Reid was writing was a local at a warehouse his boss owned in company, Cybernet. Nomani knew the Nazimabad neighborhood in it well. It was her Internet provider.

She looked up its office address and also asked him if it would be safe to gave it to Pearl. meet Gilani. Yusuf said he had never Outside around 4:30 p.m., parrots heard of Gilani. swooning overheard in the bright During the meeting, Pearl got two sunshine, Pearl slipped into a taxi phone calls. In the middle of the in- driven by a burly Pashtun driver, terview, at 5:52 p.m., Pearl received Nasir Abbas. Pearl said he’d be back a phone call from the balding mili- around 9 p.m. His wife, Mariane, tant called “the old man,” and talked and his friend, Nomani, stood on for a little over a minute. Outside, the edge of the roadway and waved his taxi driver heard the call for the goodbye. It would be the last time sunset prayer as Pearl emerged for they would ever see him. his next and final stop: a meeting at “Lakson Square Building,” Pearl the Village Restaurant. told his taxi driver. It was the head- At 6:26 p.m., Pearl called Nomani’s quarters for Cybernet. The driver house and told her he’d be back for finally found his way after getting dinner. At 6:28 p.m., Pearl received lost. Once there, Pearl told his driv- another phone call from Jabbar and er with hand signals to wait. About talked for less than a minute. At 6:30 15 minutes later, he returned. He p.m., Pearl called home again to tell had struck out trying to find out his wife he was en route to his meet- more about the man to whom Reid ing. His taxi driver dropped him off was e-mailing. at the Village Restaurant and later Next stop: the offices of the Cit- told police he didn’t notice anyone izens-Police Liaison Committee, a distinguishable. Importantly, the government-citizen crime-fighting taxi driver’s account would be dif- cooperative established in 1989, ferent in court months later. with solving kidnappings as a core As he stepped out of the taxi, part of its business. At 5:10 p.m. Pearl handed the driver a 500 rupee Pearl called Jameel Yusuf, chairman note, insisting the driver keep the of the committee, to tell him quickly change of 200 rupees. It was the last that he was running late. Again, the generous act of a free man. n driver got lost. Finally in the office, Pearl asked Yusuf whether U.S. aid was useful toward achieving police and judicial reform in Pakistan. He

s dusk fell on the evening Aof Wednesday, January 23, the Kara- chi streets swelled with people bustling to get home. Wall Street Jour- nal reporter Daniel Pearl stood in front of the Vil- lage Restaurant, waiting for a 7 p.m. meeting. Pearl thought he was about to have an interview like so many he had had in the past On the night he was kidnapped, Daniel Pearl with dodgy characters believed he was going to meet with Sheik in Pakistan. Even in the Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani at the Village early days after 9/11, it Restaurant in Karachi. Credit: Derek Henry Flood was common for reporters to go in the vehicles of suspicious strangers to interview or radicals because they gave voice known extremists. It was a calculat- to the disenfranchised and dispos- ed risk. At the time, most journalists sessed. Yet, Pearl was certainly no felt they had certain immunity with cowboy. After war broke out in Af- even the most hardened criminals ghanistan, he had written to a friend:

“I’m dying to go to Afghanistan, but sat quietly,” a U.S. diplomatic cable not really anxious to die.” later reported, the Alto heading up What was to happen to Pearl the busy Shahrah-e-Faisal road to shows how the rules of the game the outskirts of Karachi. have changed in this age of terror- It was an innocuous start to what ism, how reporters can no longer was a diabolical trap set by Omar assume they possess a special im- Sheikh, a 28-year-old British-Pak- munity to the violence. To the con- istani man who had used the ruse trary, reporters can seem like easy of an interview with an extremist targets — vulnerable and offering Muslim spiritual leader to draw a way to snare global headlines. Pearl into his grip. The case demonstrates the chal- In just two-and-half days, Sheikh lenges that law enforcement and had put the operational details into intelligence officials continue to place. Now he was nowhere to be encounter in attempting to pursue seen: To later deny involvement in terrorists and prevent acts of vio- the kidnapping, he had gotten on lence. Pearl’s abduction was char- a Pakistan International Airlines acterized by low-tech, personalized plane out of town, using the alias communications that relied on pre- “Muzaffar,” according to Pakistani established ties of friendship and police. Pakistani police files, based family. The episode underscores on interrogations and other evi- how critical it is to understand dence, lay out what happened next. what is known in defense and intel- At 7:11 p.m., Pearl received a ligence circles as “the human ter- call that lasted about four minutes. rain,” if authorities want to uncover About 7:45 p.m., Pearl’s local “fixer,” and prevent terrorist activities. Afzal Nadeem, a journalist, called But, in this case, Pearl stood Pearl to tell him he’d gotten an inter- alone in the most populated city in view scheduled with a cyber secu- Pakistan, out of the war zone, with rity specialist. Pearl didn’t answer. just a writing pad, labeled “Report- Around that time, just before er’s Notebook,” a pen, and a shoul- the sunset prayer, Attaur Rehman, der bag. A car arrived — by one ac- a local boss in the militant group count a red Suzuki Alto — and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, arrived at a driver beckoned him inside. “Dan- compound in a remote neighbor- iel got in without hesitation and hood on the outskirts of town. A

group of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi men cluding his camera, tape recorder, stood by, awaiting orders. They mobile phone, wrist watch, eye- were young, low-level militants glasses and case, wallet, four to Rehman had plucked out of his Ka- five mobile phone cards, shoes, and rachi neighborhood to be guards in a Citibank credit card. Pearl com- this scheme. plied. Rehman asked Pearl what he “The guest is coming. Get ready,” wanted to eat. The guards suggest- Rehman told them. ed a hamburger. He took two Russian-made TT-30 Rehman tied the belongings in a semiautomatic pistols from a side handkerchief and, with Sajid Jab- compartment of his Honda CD 70 bar — the English-speaking “Imtiaz motorcycle, giving one to a guard Siddique” who met Pearl at the Vil- and keeping the other. He turned to lage Restaurant — left for the near- one of the men, Fazal Karim, a low- by neighborhood of Sohrab Goth. level militant with five daughters, It isn’t clear whether Pearl just re- and told him to watch the gate and mained in his underwear, but his open it as soon as a car arrived. clothes were taken. When the car pulled up, Pearl was The men stood around not sure in the front seat. Karim and another what to do. They were a motley guard later said it was a red Suzuki crew. By day, Karim, the father of Alto, matching a description of the five daughters, was a driver for the kidnap car later given by Rehman. owner of the compound where they The color of the vehicle would end now stood. He’d arranged the safe up being an important detail, but no- house for Rehman. body realized it at the time. Karim Rehman recruited a young mili- opened the gate. Rehman opened tant, Siraj ul-Haq, 27, who was an the front door and led Pearl out of electrician by day. Married with the car. With a pistol in one hand, two young children, he’d grown he put his other hand around Pearl’s up in Karachi in the Nazimabad neck and took him inside the small neighborhood of Paposh Nagar in a cinderblock building. Pashtun family, studying only until “Come on,” he said, in English. the fifth grade. The Pashtuns are Inside were several men. Rehm- an ethnic group in the Afghanistan- an told Pearl to take off his clothes Pakistan border region and make and hand over his belongings, in- up most of the Afghan Taliban. In

Clockwise from top left: Malik Tassadaq Hussain, Mohammad Akbar Sattar, Siraj ul-Haq, and Abdul Hayee. All allegedly guarded Daniel Pearl while he was kidnapped. None of them has been prosecuted. Credit: Pakistani police

their home neighborhood, he met in Karachi. In 1999, he allegedly Rehman, who talked to him about helped kill a Shia man. joining the jihad. He went to Kash- Another guard was Malik Tas- mir, the divided region claimed by sadaq Hussain, 27, the son of a both Pakistan and India, for 40 days former mid-level Pakistan army of- of training and returned a member ficer. In the 1990s, Hussain went to of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Sunni sec- Afghanistan for training at militant tarian group that Rehman headed camps, illustrating how some Paki-

stani families have one foot in the ten children born to a poor couple military and the other in militancy. in Karachi and grew up in his family By day, Hussain ran a family chick- village of Alipur in Punjab, where he en shop near the Student Biryani memorized the Koran at a madrassa, restaurant, one of the meeting spots or religious school. One of the meet- used by Omar Sheikh in setting up ings he had with Rehman, laying out the kidnap plot. Unmarried, he was his role in the kidnapping, was at a Sunni Muslim from the northern Snoopy Ice Cream Shop. Punjabi Malik Awan tribe, a group For about two-and-half hours, heavily recruited by the Pakistani the men sat around. At around 10 army. In 1996, at his neighborhood p.m., Rehman returned with food mosque, a local militant leader, Asif and items he bought at the Sohr- Ramzi, recruited him and some of ab Goth flea market — bedding, his friends into Sipah-e-Sahaba chains, a lock, and a tracksuit with Pakistan, a Sunni sectarian militant a jacket. The jacket was red, black, group. Listening to sermons, he met and blue. Rehman. Over the next years, Hus- Pearl put on the clothes, con- sain spent time behind bars with fused. “What is going on?” he asked. members of his neighborhood mili- Mohammad Akbar Sattar, 27, tant cabal, and had been released watched. He had been assigned to from jail on October 27, 2001. guard Pearl because he knew some Sheikh had turned to Ramzi to help English. He replied with a lie that him with the kidnapping plot, and the coercive arrangements were be- Hussain got a job as a guard. ing carried out at the order of Sheik Another guard was Abdul Hayee, Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, the cleric about 30, a militant who came from Pearl still thought he was going to the same district in Punjab, Rahim interview. Yar Khan, as the guard, Karim. He “Is this security?” Pearl asked. lived in the same Gulshan Iqbal Sattar answered, “Yes, this is se- neighborhood of Karachi as many curity.” of the other alleged culprits in the The guards tied Pearl’s legs with Pearl case. Standing only about 4 the chain and tied the chain to an feet, 11 inches tall, he had a short, old car engine in the room. thick beard and a noticeable mark Rehman left, telling the guards, on his forehead. Hayee was one of “Look after him.” n

3PART 4 SHOW CONTENTS PART 64 The Truth Left Behind | Part 6 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 51 H olding the Hostage By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Kira Zalan, Erin Delmore, Jessica Rettig, and Adil Awadh

y the morning of Thursday, January B24, 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s family, friends and colleagues had alerted everyone from the U.S. State Department to Pakistani police that the reporter had been missing since 7 p.m. the night before. Pakistani cops were scouring Pearl’s laptop at the home where Pearl was staying, searching for clues to his whereabouts. In an urgent call about One of the photos of Daniel Pearl sent by 2:10 a.m. to the U.S. Con- his kidnappers in their first ransom note. sulate in Karachi, Asra No- mani, co-director of the Pearl Project and then a Wall Street was off to an interview with a cleric, Journal reporter on book leave, said Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani. A she and Pearl’s wife, Mariane, hadn’t Marine guard told her to call back heard from him for almost eight in the morning to talk with Randall hours since he had called to say he Bennett, the U.S. regional security

officer. Meanwhile, she alerted The Metropole Hotel. And there were e- Wall Street Journal, which called the mail exchanges with the seemingly State Department in Washington. helpful Bashir — the alias being Mariane called Pearl’s parents. used by a man named Omar Sheikh At 6 a.m., Nomani talked to Ben- — about the arrangements to meet nett, who had met with Pearl just with Gilani. Mahmood raised his the previous afternoon about the eyebrows at Bashir’s e-mail ad- potential dangers of his interview. dress: “nobadmashi@ yahoo.com.” He gave Nomani the name of trusted In Urdu, the native language of Pakistani cops she should call. many Pakistanis, badmashi means By 9 a.m., Pakistani cops flood- troublemaking. “No troublemaking” ed Nomani’s house. The case was seemed an odd e-mail address. assigned to two veteran Pakistani Mahmood called Khalid Khawaja, police investigators, Mir Zubair described as a friend of Gilani’s in a Mahmood and Dost Ali Baloch, led Boston Globe article; Khawaja said by the Crime Investigation Depart- Gilani would never meet a journal- ment (CID), an office behind the ist in Karachi, far from his home in Karachi Sheraton, notorious among Lahore. And Baloch doubted that criminals for the ceiling hooks from Gilani was involved. While some which police would hang them dur- U.S. officials wondered about his al- ing beatings. leged ties to militancy in the United Mahmood, a retired Pakistani States, he was a respected spiritual Army captain with decades in the leader in Pakistan. CID, had less experience with kid- The Pearl mystery was fast be- napping cases, but he’d logged plen- coming global headline news, includ- ty of time investigating murders. ing the details of the Richard Reid Baloch was a member of the Special story he was chasing. In the United Branch unit with expertise in kid- States, the Newark FBI office took napping cases but little experience the lead in the Pearl case, setting up with homicides. a command center at the Journal’s They scanned Pearl’s laptop. His office in South Brunswick, N.J. The Palm Desktop had this entry, “rest special agent put in charge of the behind metropole,” from 6:30 p.m. Pearl case was Jay Kanetkar, 34, a to 7:30 p.m. “Rest” was shorthand two-year veteran of the terrorism for the Village Restaurant near the squad who had his own near-death

experience on 9/11. He survived that cal kingpin of the operation, Attaur day only because, when his partner Rehman, a local militant leader, ran late, they missed their flight to brought Pearl breakfast. The day San Francisco — the hijacked Unit- passed slowly for everyone. ed Flight 93 which crashed in Penn- By evening, Pearl finally got fed sylvania after passengers heroically up. He told his guards he didn’t want challenged the terrorists onboard. to wait to interview Gilani, the cler- That day in Islamabad, with FBI ic he thought he would be meeting. Director Robert Mueller coinciden- “Let me call someone, or let me go,” tally in Pakistan for a visit, Wendy he told his guards. “I don’t want to Chamberlin, the U.S. ambassador talk to him anymore.” to Pakistan, “makes a forceful de- One of the guards, Malik Tas- marche on Pearl’s behalf to Presi- sadaq Hussain, slapped Pearl across dent Musharraf,” according to a the face and said, “You are in our State Department cable. Among custody. Shut up and sit there. If you diplomats, a démarche is an official talk, we will kill you,” according to message to a foreign government, an account that a police officer said often a protest or warning. The ca- Hussain told him. One of the logisti- ble, referring to the government of cal chiefs, Faisal Bhatti, kicked and Pakistan as “GOP,” notes: “In the shook Pearl, clutching the back of same meeting with President Mush- his hair, said the police officer. arraf, Ambassador again requests A day after his abduction, this GOP action on our rendition request was the first time that the guards re- for Sheikh Omar Saeed.” The United vealed the truth to Pearl. Pearl gave States didn’t realize his connection up trying to leave — for the moment. to the Pearl case. The next morning, Rehman, the Unbeknownst to the authorities, local militant boss heading the op- Pearl was being held about an hour’s erational details, arrived with a drive away in a compound on the Polaroid camera that had been the outskirts of Karachi. His kidnapping focus of much hand-wringing in the had been arranged by a charismatic days before, as members of the kid- British-Pakistani, Omar Sheikh, af- napping operation tried to figure out filiated with Pakistani militants, but how to use it. even Pearl didn’t know it. Rehman handed Pearl that day’s At around 10 a.m., the logisti- issue of Dawn, a leading English-

language newspaper. Pearl held it up in front of himself. Hussain, a militant who had just learned how to use the Polaroid, pointed the camera at Pearl and took the first photograph, according to police. Hussain took several other photos that the world was soon to see: one of Pearl bound in chains, his head bowed, his fingers in an unusual position that would raise questions with investigators later; another of Pearl, bound The Naubahar Restaurant in the again, this time with a man holding Saddar neighborhood of Karachi, a gun to his head; and a final photo where Sheikh Mohammad Adil, of Pearl, his legs sprawled, pointing a rogue cop, gave Salman Saqib at the newspaper, hung on a curtain an envelope containing photos of behind him. In the last photo, Pearl Pearl. Credit: Derek Henry Flood had a smirk on his face. The militants had a “proof of life,” as it’s known in the hostage negotia- napping scheme, Sheikh Mohammad tion business, evidence that kidnap- Adil, a rogue cop who had become a pers use to show that their captive militant. He also provided a mobile is alive. phone SIM card so Adil could make That afternoon in Karachi, men phone calls without detection. thronged towards the Sabeel Wali After the sunset prayer, Adil called Masjid, the “Mosque of the Way of another hired gun in the operation, the Trusted One,” for the Friday con- Salman Saqib, a militant with shrap- gregational prayer, an important ser- nel in his hip from fighting for the Tal- vice akin to Sunday service in Chris- iban in Afghanistan. The mastermind tianity. Inside, two men were using of the kidnapping plot, Omar Sheikh, the mosque as a sanctuary for their had assigned him the task of e-mail- nefarious purposes, according to a ing ransom notes to journalists. The police report. Discreetly, Rehman, two men made arrangements to meet the militant boss, handed an enve- at the Naubahar Restaurant in the lope to another hired gun in the kid- neighborhood of Saddar that evening

Salman Saqib and Fahad Naseem bought a Canon printer and a Hewlett- Packard scanner from Jogi’s Computer store in Karachi. At their uncle’s home, the cousins scanned photos of Pearl in captivity and saved them to a floppy disk. Credit: Derek Henry Flood

around 9 p.m. There, the rogue cop ment of an uncle in a high-rise gave Saqib an unsealed white enve- apartment complex, Noman Grand lope. Saqib’s younger cousin, Fahad City, in the Gulistan-e-Jauhar neigh- Naseem, stood nearby. According to borhood of Karachi. Saqib claimed the younger cousin, Saqib opened the he opened the envelope there. Ei- envelope in the bathroom of the res- ther way, they found four envelopes taurant. inside the one envelope. Each one The cousins went to the apart- contained a photo of Pearl.

Sheikh, the mastermind of the “American CIA officer in our cus- plot, called to tell them it was time tody.” It declared: to send the ransom notes to jour- The National movement for the nalists. restoration of Pakistan sovereignty The cousins went to Jogi Com- has captured CIA officer Daniel puter Super Store on Shahrah-e- Pearl who has posing as a journal- Faisal, a busy road named for Saudi ist of The Wall Street Journal. King Faisal, an important inspira- Unfortunately, he is at present be- tion, in death, for Pakistan’s turn to- ing kept in very inhuman circum- ward fundamentalism in the 1970s stances quite similar infact to the and 1980s. It would emerge as a way that Pakistanis and nationals major artery in the geography of of other sovereign countries are the Pearl case. There, they bought being kept in Cuba by the Ameri- a Canon printer and a Hewlett- can Army. If the Americans keep Packard scanner with money that our countrymen in better condi- Sheikh, the mastermind, had given tions we will better the conditions them two days earlier. Back at their of Mr.Pearl and all the other Ameri- uncle’s home, the cousins scanned cans that we capture. the photos and saved them onto a If the America wants the release floppy disk. of Mr.Pearl, all Pakistanis being As the hunt for Pearl ramped up, illegally detained by the FBI in side there was no word from the kidnap- America merely on suspicion must pers. That wasn’t part of the plan. be given access to lawyers and al- As it turns out, for a day, the cous- lowed seeing their family members. ins couldn’t get their e-mails sent. The Pakistani prisoners in Cuba The images were too big. Internet must be returned to Pakistan and connections were too slow. Noth- they will be tried in a Pakistani ing worked. Court. After all Pakistan was a full Finally, on Saturday evening, member of the international coali- sitting at a computer at a cyber tion against terror and it deserves café, Naseem, the younger cous- the right to try its own citizens. And Send Afghanistan’s Embassador in, pushed the “send” button on a Mulla Zaeef back to Pakistan and ransom note from kidnapperguy@ if there is any accusition Pakistani hotmail.com. It included the four Government should handle it. photos of Pearl. The subject line

“Those guarding Daniel were given the impression that Dan- iel was being kept as a bargaining chip for the release of the Al-Qaida prisoners in Cuba,” a U.S. diplomatic cable reported. These were grandiose demands, since realisti- cally none would be granted. Still, at least Pearl was still alive. And there was still some chance that he would be rescued or that the kidnappers, having had their moment of world attention, would relent and free him unharmed. There was a quiet hope in the Wall Street Jour- nal newsroom that the newspaper could offer money in lieu of other Muhammad Muzzamil was allegedly demands to get his freedom. one of the men guarding Daniel The FBI, which saw the e-mail Pearl during his captivity. He for the first time the next morning, claims to have witnessed Khalid officially declared the Pearl case Sheikh Mohammed kill Pearl. a criminal investigation. But, in Credit: Pakistani police Pakistan, agents had to follow the lead of local police. “We were very beholden to them,” said Dean Phil- the property and started climbing lips, an FBI agent in Karachi for the over it. Pearl investigation. He got halfway over the wall, One night, Pearl told his guards shouting, “Help me!” It was a futile he needed to go to the bathroom. effort since there were few build- As he walked out of the two-room ings nearby and one of them was hut to an outhouse, Pearl pushed a mosque tied to Sipah-e-Sahaba his English-speaking guard, Mo- Pakistan, the Deobandi sectarian hammad Akbar Sattar, into an open militant group. “It is unlikely that wash tank. He bounded toward the anyone heard his cries,” U.S. Con- six-foot boundary wall surrounding sul General John Bauman reported

to headquarters, “let alone would The younger cousin scanned the involve themselves if they did.” photographs at home onto his lap- A guard on duty, Muhammad top — not heeding advice Sheikh Muzzamil, heard the yelling from had given them earlier not to use inside the room. Two guards, Malik his own laptop. He typed up the Tassadaq Hussain and Fazal Karim, new ransom note, and his cousin awakened and leapt up from woven burned the photos, but they’d soon cots where they slept in the court- learn that this cyber trail would be yard. The guard in the water pulled used as evidence to implicate them himself out. He, too, ran towards in the kidnapping. Pearl. Omar Sheikh later told police Within seconds, they pulled him he instructed the militant lead- down, dragging him back inside the ers overseeing the operation, Asif hut. There, they beat him with the Ramzi and Amjad Farooqi, to re- butt of a pistol, one of the guards lease Pearl, and that Farooqi had later told police, finally handcuff- agreed. ing him from behind and tying a The FBI and Pakistani cops, cloth over his mouth. meanwhile, were still on a wild On Monday, January 28, the mas- goose chase. They had caught a son termind, Omar Sheikh, told Adil, the of Gilani, the man that Pearl thought rogue cop, to hand over a second he was going to meet. Omar Sheikh envelope to Saqib, the militant with was not yet on their list of suspects. bullet fragments in his hip. Sheikh The CIA issued a statement de- called Saqib and told him to ex- nying that Pearl was a spy. And The pect another phone call from Adil. Wall Street Journal issued a state- That evening, Saqib got the call and ment stating that Pearl “has never made arrangements to meet the cop worked for the CIA or the U.S. gov- again at the Naubahar Restaurant. ernment in any capacity.” Around 9 p.m., near the restaurant By Tuesday, Sheikh had called restroom, the cop handed Saqib an- Saqib, the militant, with a new other envelope. e-mail address, unzza@hotmail. At home, the cousins opened the com, where he said he’d find a sec- envelope and found two new photo- ond ransom note. The password: graphs of Pearl. Sheikh called and “313786.” The number “313” has told the cousins: “Also mail these.” symbolic meaning because it’s be-

lieved that, in the 7th century, 313 The next day, Wednesday, Janu- Muslims fought with the Prophet ary 30, the Pakistan newspaper, Muhammad in the Battle of Badr The News International, reported to defeat an enemy that far out- Pearl was Jewish, under the byline numbered them. “786” is used by of a Washington Post local stringer Muslims to symbolize the phrase, named Kamran Khan. He reported “Bismillah ir-rahman ir-rahim,” that “some Pakistani security offi- meaning, “In the name of God, the cials — not familiar with the worth most gracious, the most compas- of solid investigative reporting in sionate.” the international media — are pri- Riddled with intentional typos, vately searching for answers as to perhaps to avoid detection by in- why a Jewish American reporter telligence community spy software was exceeding ‘his limits’ to in- that flags certain words when e- vestigate [a] Pakistani religious mailed, the note read: group.” In an interview Khan later said, “I feel sorry that I wrote that we have interrogated mr. D. Parl Danny was Jewish.” and we have come to the con- It’s unknown whether the kid- clusion that contrary to what we nappers took note of the story, but thought earlier he is not working the article certainly made Pearl less for the cia …. Therefore we are releasing him unconditionally. if we sympathetic a victim in the eyes of had found him to be a cia man we Al Qaeda, the Pakistani militancy, would certainly have killed him. and their sympathizers. That day, police reported that That night, at the last minute, they had located Gilani. But investi- Sheikh called and told the cous- gators Mahmood and Baloch sensed ins to edit the note, because Pearl they were on the wrong track. And was “not CIA, but a Mossad agent,” time was running out. the older cousin later recalled to At a hotel room in the Karachi police. Sheikh also said he had an- Sheraton, just blocks from where other edit. He told the older cous- her husband was kidnapped, Pearl’s in to delete the wording that said wife, Mariane, sat down for an in- Pearl would be released. The new terview with CNN. message: Pearl would be executed At 4:35 p.m., the cousins pressed within 24 hours. the “send” button on an edited

e-mail from a cyber café on the All throughout this period, the busy Shahrah-e-Faisal boulevard. guards later told police, Pearl bad- It came from strangepeoples@hot- gered them with a simple plea: “Let mail.com and the subject line read, me go.” “This one” with the message: In response, several of the guards later told police, they beat We have interogated mr.D.Parl and him. Pearl hadn’t received survival we have come to the conclusion training from kidnapping special- that contrary to what we thought earlier he is not working for the cia. ists who advise victims to appear in fact he is working for mossaad. compliant to avoid retribution. therefore we will execute him within Finally, after the beatings, Pearl 24 hours unless amreeka flfils our would curl up and sleep. n demands.

There was one easy distraction that Sheikh could manipulate: In- dia, Pakistan’s longtime enemy. Sheikh soon demanded Saqib send a third message. Salman refused. Sheikh insisted, “Yes, you will, and you will also call the American consulate and embassy,” and gave him phone numbers for the interior minister and the prime minister of In- dia. The government of Pakistan already was accusing India in staging the kidnapping. Any links Sheikh could establish with India would be good for conspiracy theories and would stir Pakistani national- ism. But Saqib later told police that the work made him “tense” and took the SIM card out of his mobile phone so he couldn’t receive any more calls from Sheikh.

3PART 5 SHOW CONTENTS PART 74 The Truth Left Behind | Part 7 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 61 Killing the Journalist By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Kira Zalan, Shilpika Das, Sakshi Jain, and Bonnie Rollins

Editor’s Note: Some of the passages taur Rehman, the local leader of a in this chapter may be disturbing militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, because of their violent and graphic told them to do whatever these new nature. men asked. If the kidnapping had been something of an ad hoc opera- n the bright sun of Paki- tion, this changed everything. stan’s winter, three men walked The three men were pros at ter- Ithrough the gate of a compound rorism. They came to kill Pearl and on the outskirts of Karachi, the fate to herald their brutality in a grue- of Wall Street Journal reporter Dan- some video that would be seen by iel Pearl in their hands. One was a millions around the world. The vid- tall, beefy man, clean shaven except eo horrifies most viewers, but it is for a big black mustache. He called meant to stir the passion of jihadis himself “Mukhtar,” an Arabic word in their quest to spread radical Is- denoting leader. His two allies car- lam and go to war with the West, in ried bags containing video gear and particular America and Israel. Com- the implements for Pearl’s death and ing as it did only months after 9/11, dismemberment, two knives, and a the murder video played well among meat cleaver. militants in places such as Pakistan Some of the handful of local where the call to jihad resonates thugs guarding Pearl called them among the young and disaffected. “the Arabs.” It isn’t clear if this was Exactly how these ruthless men an ethnic reference or shorthand for were drawn into the Pearl plot is one Al Qaeda. And the guards’ boss, At- of the unresolved mysteries of the

case. It points to a nexus between Pakistan’s indigenous militants and members of Al Qaeda, who have more global ambitions. Based on his own confession and the testimony of witnesses, the heavy-set man was top Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or “KSM,” about 37, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. Perhaps that day his work was as simple as a family affair. His accomplices, authorities have told the Pearl Proj- ect, may have been two nephews: Musaad Aruchi, who was in his 40s, and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mohammed’s trusted 20-something aide. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told FBI Inside the Pakistani police re- agents that he was pulled into the ports, there was a cultural clue indi- kidnapping by a high-level al Qaeda cating the family could have been in- leader, an Egyptian named Saif al- volved: one of the guards described Adel (shown above), who is on the the killers as “Baloch,” an ethnic FBI’s Most Wanted list with a $5 group in the Pakistani province of million reward. Credit: FBI Baluchistan and across the border in Iran and Afghanistan. The KSM family is, in fact, Balochi. Another one World Trade Center, he was happy, of KSM’s nephews, Ramzi Yousef, but when the towers collapsed he was in prison in the U.S. for the 1993 was worried,” a person familiar with World Trade Center bombing. the interview said. When the towers The Pearl Project has learned collapsed, he told investigators, he KSM’s version of the story, as told to said, “Shit.” He was concerned how FBI agents who interviewed him in President George W. Bush, whom he Guantanamo Bay as he awaits trial. called “the cowboy” would respond, He said that he was initially pleased he told investigators. by the 9/11 attacks, but then alarmed. KSM told FBI agents: “I think we “When he saw the planes hit the bit off more than we could chew. We

had no idea what the cowboy would knowledge about KSM’s interviews, do.” When the towers fell, KSM told believes his confession. After the the FBI he thought, “We’ve awak- 9/11 attacks, as U.S. bombs dropped ened a sleeping bear.” in Afghanistan taking out Al Qaeda Indeed, KSM’s friends were dying operatives, “Khalid Sheikh Moham- in U.S. bombing raids in Afghani- med at that time wanted to send a stan, causing him to inherit folks message to the United States that such as “shoe bomber” Richard we go tit for tat,” Gunaratna said. Reid. In late January 2002, the news- KSM didn’t implicate his relatives papers were filled with headlines or anyone else by name. He said he of Pearl’s kidnapping. “He said he just took the one trip that day to the had no idea about the kidnapping. secret hideout where Pearl was being It wasn’t his,” the person said. “It held captive, and he picked up two wasn’t Al Qaeda.” random men to help him. But he told But then, one day in Karachi soon FBI agents, he had a purpose: “I want- after the Pearl kidnapping, KSM told ed to make sure I got the death pen- FBI agents, he got a phone call from alty,” if the U.S. caught him, and so he a trusted senior leader in Al Qaeda, wanted blood, literally, on his hands. Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian who is on Another reason, he cited: “Pro- the FBI’s Most Wanted list with a paganda” He told the FBI, “Conve- $5 million reward; his name means niently, Danny was Jewish.” “sword of justice” in Arabic. KSM Pearl had stumbled into his kid- wasn’t sure who had contacted al- nappers’ hands through his effort to Adel, but his colleague told him find the identity of the man who gave about Pearl. “He says, ‘Listen, he’s instructions to Reid in Pakistan. He been kidnapped. These people don’t was wrongly thought to be cleric know what to do with him. They Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani. In want to know if we want him.’ He his final moments of life, Pearl may thought this was an opportunity. We have come face to face with Richard can take advantage of it. He said he Reid’s facilitator, though he would wanted to make sure it’s an Al Qa- never know it. U.S. intelligence be- eda thing,” according to sources fa- lieve that the shoe bomber was di- miliar with the interview. rected by KSM’s younger nephew, Rohan Gunaratna, an Al Qaeda who is now a Guantanamo Bay de- expert based in Singapore, who has tainee for allegedly passing money

to the 9/11 hijackers. one account that the captivity lasted KSM, who is known to have used one week, ending it on January 30, “Mukhtar” as one of his pseudonyms, but also had a different account in boasts of killing Pearl, but has not which he told police the captivity been charged in that murder. “I de- “went on for eight to 10 days,” mak- capitated with my blessed right hand ing the arrival date for the three men the head of the American Jew Daniel sometime between January 31 and Pearl in the city of Karachi,” he de- Febuary 2. clared at a 2007 detainee hearing. The logistical chief of the kidnap- Officials have withheld the highly ping plan, Rehman, later told police classified details of his CIA interro- something shocking: Pearl hadn’t gations. The only other accounts of been killed until after the mas- what happened that day come from termind of the kidnapping, Omar some of the other men there — and Sheikh, had been picked up on Fe- their accounts vary considerably. buary 5, 2002. Rehman told interro- The first issue in dispute is exact- gators that Sheikh had left instruc- ly when the three men showed up. tions: If he was arrested, then kill According to a version of the facts Pearl. By this account, Pearl was told by Malik Tassadaq Hussain, a alive for about two weeks, not one Pakistani militant assigned to guard week as previously thought. Pearl, the men arrived four days The next issue of dispute: Who after Pearl’s kidnapping, making it brought the men? Who was the Al January 27, 2002. That was three Qaeda connection? days before the second ransom note Rehman, the logistical chief, said was e-mailed out, threatening Pearl that he instructed a businessman would be killed. Hussain’s timeline named Saud Memon, the owner of jibes with Sheikh’s recollection. Ac- the land where Pearl was held, to cording to the Pakistani police’s recall the “Arabs” to kill Pearl, and port of his interrogation, Sheikh, the “the way of killing was decided.” mastermind, said that militant lead- Memon gave money to support Al- ers Attaur Rehman and Amjad Fa- Rashid Trust, a charity with alleged rooqi told him on January 29, 2002, ties to Al Qaeda. that Pearl was already dead. “The Arabs wanted to kill Daniel Another guard, Fazal Karim, a Pearl by themselves,” Rehman is driver with five daughters, said in quoted saying in a police report of

Saud Memon owned the land where Daniel Pearl was held. On April 27, 2007, Memon, barely alive, was found dumped near his home. He is pictured here after he received hospital care. Credit: Pakistani police

his interrogation, “so that somehow and being “Makrani type,” referring they could take the revenge of the to an ethnic group descended from massacre of Muslims in Afghanistan African slaves that Arab merchants and Palestine.” In return, “the Arabs” brought to the Pakistani province of promised to pay Memon $10,000, he Baluchistan in medieval times. said. But one of the guards, Siraj ul- There are yet more versions bur- Haq, told police he understood that ied in Pakistani police reports and Memon brokered a $50,000 deal for U.S. State Department cables. What Pearl, but that only $10,000 ended is clear is that Pearl’s fate changed up being paid. disastrously once “the Arabs” ar- The day of the murder, Rehman rived at the compound. Interviews said, a man arrived, accompanied with Pakistani police and police in- with “the two Arab natives,” who terrogation reports chronicle what he described as having “curly hairs” happened next in the compound.

The newcomers had a video cam- guage other than English or Arabic.” era, something wrapped in a cloth, A guard thought it might have been and a shopping bag with more shop- Hebrew. “Daniel seemed very com- ping bags inside. fortable with the person who spoke Within minutes, they started film- in that language,” the cable said. ing Pearl. The group read the early afternoon The older nephew, a trusted prayer together. Rehman, the logisti- leader in KSM’s operations, started cal chief, moved to leave, but first asking Pearl questions in English, told the guards, “They have come to according to one version pieced to- do something. Let them do it.” Some gether by Pakistani police. “The Ar- time later, between the late afternoon abs interviewed Daniel and gave no prayer and the sunset prayer, Karim impression that he was going to be would tell a Pakistani police officer, killed,” a diplomatic cable later said, Fayyaz Khan, that the men told him, relaying what a Pakistani police of- “We have to slaughter him.” ficial had told the U.S. The men then tied Pearl’s hands The men gave Pearl a script to behind his back and wrapped a read while the younger nephew blindfold around his eyes so he filmed the scene. A guard who un- couldn’t see what was about to hap- derstood English told Karim that the pen, guards later told police. They script had Pearl telling the United made Pearl lie on the floor on his States, “Stop the cruelty and vio- left side. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lence against the Muslims.” pulled two knives and a cleaver from Subdued, Pearl followed the the bundle of cloth that he’d carried script. He had a flat affect, not re- into the room. He grabbed Pearl by vealing any real emotion. He wasn’t his hair. Karim, the guard with five wearing his glasses. He looked like daughters, and another guard, Mu- he had just a few days of stubble on hammad Muzzamil, held Pearl in his face, a sign that this taping may place at his hips and legs. According have happened early in his detention to the scenario U.S. and Pakistani of- — before the arrest of Omar Sheikh, ficials are considering, the younger the mastermind. “Daniel felt confi- nephew turned on the video camera, dent that he might be released,” the while the older nephew helped hold diplomatic cable reported. “One of Pearl down. “Daniel was caught off the Arabs spoke with Daniel in a lan- guard from the relaxing interview

and was held as they killed him and through his throat. It was a scene he could offer no resistance,” the that would later turn the stomachs U.S. diplomatic cable said. of even the most hardened Pakistani Without hesitation, KSM took a and U.S. investigators. knife and slashed Pearl’s neck. Muz- KSM then took Pearl’s decapitat- zamil, a guard, said the “Arabs did ed head by the hair and held it in the ziba,” the Muslim ritual of slaughter. air for the camera. “Khalid Sheikh Muzzamil started to wretch. KSM picked up his head and said some- yelled at him angrily and threw him thing in Arabic” before cutting the out of the room. Another guard was body into pieces, Siraj ul-Haq later told to go: Hussain, who later de- told cops. Dispassionately, KSM scribed the strangers as “Arab” to later told FBI agents that, indeed, he police. Only Karim and the spindly had chopped up Pearl’s body. “We guard, Siraj ul-Haq, remained. KSM did it to get rid of the body,” he said. then returned his attention to Pearl. Afterwards, the guards took the Ul-Haq was later quoted in his inter- pieces of Pearl’s body and stuffed rogation report saying, “Sheikh Kha- them into the shopping bags. They lid slaughtered him.” walked around the plot, debating But then there was a problem. where to bury him and ordering the It’s not clear if the camera actually guards to dig a hole in a corner of jammed, but the cameraman, who the courtyard. Siraj ul-Haq took the U.S. and Pakistani officials believe pieces of Pearl’s body out of the may have been the younger nephew, shopping bags to bury them. He also exclaimed that he hadn’t been able buried the bags. to videotape the killing. KSM yelled Then, it was time to pray. The at him. Chastened, he hurriedly fixed guards washed the bloody floor his camera. “The camera guy was where Pearl had been killed, and the startled,” KSM later told the FBI. men touched the same ground with “He didn’t put the video in.” KSM re- their foreheads in prostration. KSM enacted the scene, “this time sepa- and the other two men took the mur- rating Danny’s head from his body,” der knife, the camera and the other the guard Karim said later. To prove weapons and left, leaving evidence that Pearl was alive just before the behind of Pearl’s bedding and other beheading, KSM pressed on Pearl’s personal belongings. chest to show blood still pumping Their job was done. n

3PART 6 SHOW CONTENTS PART 84 The Truth Left Behind | PART 8 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 68 Losing the Race Against Time By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Kira Zalan, Karina Hurley, Bonnie Rollins, John Gregory, Erin Delmore, Clara Zabludowsky, Jill Phaneuf and Doug Lane

rom the start, everyone knew that Fthe hunt to find Dan- iel Pearl was a frantic race against time. They knew that it might not have a happy ending. The kidnappers had quickly gone from an initial ransom note to a death threat. Their first note called him a CIA spy but then, learning he was Jew- The lobby of the Karachi Sheraton where ish, they declared he was a courier handed an FBI agent the video not CIA but was working documenting Daniel Pearl’s murder. Credit: for the Israeli intelligence Derek Henry Flood service Mossad. “There- fore,” they vowed, “we will execute him within 24 hours unless had suddenly arrived just days after amreeka fulfils our demands.” he was kidnapped and killed him, That was on January 30. Little did recording Pearl’s last words, “I am the FBI and Pakistani police know a Jew,” on a video. their efforts were futile. Three men There was an adrenaline rush

when Pakistani police and FBI ability for actions taken.” Then, the agents caught a break just a few computer forensics expert took a days later. That kicked off a succes- word from one of the ransom notes: sion of dramatic raids across Kara- “Amreeka.” Bingo. He got his first chi that would lead to the kidnap- hit: an electronic trail of the ran- ping mastermind and the men who som notes. He searched for photos sent out the ransom notes, but not and hit pay dirt: hostage photos of to Pearl and the men who by then Pearl. were in charge of his fate. In custody, the young man — lat- The ransom notes were the er described by one U.S. official as tipoff. In sending those notes by e- a “jihadi wannabe” — gave police a mail, the kidnappers unintentional- damning confession, describing his ly gave investigators an electronic excitement at being part of the plot. trail they could trace back to the That wasn’t all. Naseem fingered sender’s computer. On February 4, the kidnapping instigator as a man 2002, police traced the e-mails and named Omar Sheikh, an all-around photos of Pearl’s kidnapping to a bad guy known in radical circles for cyber café, Speedy Internet. The kidnappings and ties to Pakistani owner produced records showing militants. FBI notes from an inter- that a young man, an unemployed view with Naseem stated: “Omar computer programmer named Fa- advised that this was a big job and had Naseem, had sent the e-mails. that Fahad was going to be a part of The tipoff led police to him, and this big job by sending the e-mail.” they grabbed his laptop. Naseem said he didn’t know For hours, at the U.S. Consulate, Sheikh before an older cousin, FBI computer forensics expert Ron- Salman Saqib, 26, had introduced ald J. Wilczynski dug into the hard them on January 22 — as the plot drive, which had been reformatted was being organized just a day be- to hide its old contents. He looked fore Pearl was seized. in the directory for clues. Nothing. Naseem insisted he didn’t know He did a search of Pearl’s name. how to find Sheikh, but pointed Nothing. He found a job inquiry let- police to where they could get his ter Naseem had written, asserting, cousin Saqib. With his information, “I believe in personal ethics such police moved quickly and nabbed as integrity, honesty, and account- Saqib while he was leaving his home

In this photo taken from a video, Daniel Pearl spoke about his family, his Jewish heritage, and the need to change American foreign policy. Credit: FBI

to make a phone call. After about two Saqib told the police where to hours in police custody, he broke find Adil. The team sped to the and gave police another name, one house, an hour away. Arriving about of Sheikh’s couriers named Sheikh 4 a.m., as dawn arrived on the morn- Mohammad Adil. It had been Adil’s ing of February 5, 2002, they scaled job to deliver envelopes — with a the walls and entered the house, hostage photo of Pearl holding the finding Adil and a brother. The po- local newspaper Dawn, and with a lice grabbed Adil, a hardcore jihadi gun held to his head — to be sent out who had fought in Afghanistan. with the kidnap e-mail messages. He was also — to the shock of po-

lice — a cop. He served as a police and her young sons. She claimed to constable in the Special Branch, a know nothing. police intelligence unit, but he was At that point, lead police inves- a secret member of an Islamic mili- tigator Mir Zubair Mahmood got a tant group, Harkat ul-Mujahideen. phone number for Sheikh from his He had gone to Afghanistan for a aunt. Sheikh answered the call, six-week training camp in February Mahmood recalled. “I know who 2001, where he first met Sheikh. you are,” he told him. “I know you All this information gave Paki- kidnapped Daniel Pearl.” stani and American investigators It was time to play hardball, and the first real traction on Pearl’s Mahmood was ready to use what abduction. They now had a good leverage he had at hand. It is not idea about how Pearl was kid- uncommon in Pakistan to round up napped. But they had few clues to relatives of a wanted man and use his whereabouts. They hammered family to pressure the suspect to away at the men, beating them amid surrender. the questioning, according to offi- Mahmood put Sheikh’s aunt on cials at the scene. the phone. With police threatening But what about a location for to take her young sons into custo- Pearl? The best Adil could offer: try dy, she pled with her nephew to ad- the home of Sheikh’s aunt, where mit what he had done and turn him- the three men had met with Sheikh self in. Check, but not checkmate. in the days before Pearl’s kidnap- Mahmood took the phone back, but ping. He likely knew Pearl wasn’t all he heard on the other end was held there, but it would throw po- silence. Sheikh had hung up. lice off the trail. Mahmood had lost his man. At In a SWAT operation at about 5 least for the moment. a.m., about 35 Pakistani police of- But he wasn’t one to give up, not ficers scaled the nine-foot wall when they were so close. Police around the aunt’s bungalow, over- surrounded the homes of several powering the night watchman. different wings of Sheikh’s family, Breaking down doors, they entered from his ancestral village of Nank- the house, opening the front door ana Sahib in the province of Punjab for the rest of the team. Inside, to his wife’s home in Lahore. the police rounded up Omar’s aunt On the morning of February 5,

2002, after the raids, Mahmood went ken in two. Bauman knew the drill. to the U.S. Consulate to brief John Beating someone with a bamboo Bauman, the U.S. consul general in stick inflicts pain but doesn’t leave Karachi. He had news. The prime marks. suspect was Omar Sheikh. The po- “What’s that?” Bauman asked, lice told him they had Sheikh’s aunt wanting to confirm his suspicions. and a child in custody, leverage to “The answer to a question,” Ben- get their prime suspect to surren- nett responded. der. The name of the suspect, Omar Bauman knew about the beat- Sheikh, was new to Bauman. Back ings. The Pakistani police, Bauman in his office, he did a Google search recalled later, were “caught up in and read details of how the pas- the adrenaline of having kicked sengers on a hijacked 1999 Indian down some doors and gotten infor- Airlines flight had been traded for mation from people in the Pakistani three convicted Pakistani militants fashion.” Pakistani police, he said, in India — Omar Sheikh and two were “obsessed with getting a good other militants. outcome.” The embassy’s chief se- Bauman ran down the hall to curity officer, Randall Bennett, Bennett waving the printouts. To “thought it was kind of cool that he his surprise, an FBI agent in the of- got to go along” with the police on fice exclaimed, “This is the guy we their raids, Bauman recalled, and came to pick up!” Indeed, Sheikh that it had been a night of “kicking was the man that the U.S. ambas- down doors, grabbing someone, sador had repeatedly asked to have scaring them to death.” Because of extradited to the United States. the urgency of the matter, investi- Bauman, the consul general, didn’t gators “don’t stop and say, ‘Is this know about this pick-up effort. the right move at this stage?’” Bau- Until then, no one had thought man said. of the one Pakistani that America That morning, after meeting with already wanted for kidnapping an Mahmood, a person familiar with American. the scene said, Bauman walked That evening, FBI agent Ron into Bennett’s office where he Duce updated his colleagues on the saw on the desk a bamboo stick of night’s raids during the daily call about one-and-a-half feet long, bro- to the FBI command center. Duce

detailed how the office of the lead Pakistani investigator, Mir Zubair Mahmood, had giant hooks hanging from a ceiling of about 30 feet high. The night before, police tied a suspect to the hook, hoisted him a little bit and “beat the shit out of him” with a bamboo stick, Duce explained. Kevin Donovan, an FBI supervisor in New Jersey, screamed: “Whoever goes over there, if you see or you know someone’s about to get beat, you leave!” That same day, Feb- ruary 5, Omar Sheikh’s father and an uncle, who was a judge, met him at a mosque, and he reportedly assured them that he wasn’t involved. Investigating Daniel Pearl’s murder was Still, they said later in dangerous for Pakistani police officers such as court, he agreed to go Fayyaz Khan, who was struck by a parcel bomb with them to surrender in Karachi. Credit: Pakistani police to local authorities. However, it wasn’t until a week later, on February 12, the circumstances of his arrest that U.S. officials learned police would become one of the lingering had Omar Sheikh in custody. And questions as he faced trial. n

3PART 7 SHOW CONTENTS PART 94 The Truth Left Behind | Part 9 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 74 Catching the Mastermind By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Kira Zalan, Afgan Niftiyev, Jill Phaneuf, Doug Lane, Clara Zabludowsky and J.P. Finlay

idnapping plotter Omar KSheikh had scurried out of town after turning over Dan- iel Pearl to local militant leaders in Karachi. Sheikh later told police that Asif Ramzi, an operational leader, called him and told him that Pearl had been killed. Sheikh recalled that he Omar Sheikh surrendered on February 5, 2002, immediately phoned and was later charged as the mastermind behind Amjad Farooqi, his the Pearl kidnapping. In this grainy video still contact to the local shot by an FBI agent, he is shown in police militant leaders, and custody in Karachi. Credit: Tarine Fairman asked him to get the details. Farooqi met Sheikh in Lahore and confirmed that sponded, but when he was arrested Pearl was dead. This account has he claimed to police that Pearl was Pearl dead before Sheikh was ar- still alive. rested. It isn’t clear how Sheikh re- Sheikh had experience as a kid-

napper, nabbing tourists in New Del- conscience. The second time he did hi in 1994, but, as far as is known, a kidnapping it was not so bad, and wasn’t a killer. Was his intention to the third time it got easier and so carry through on the Pearl death on,” according to the FBI interview threat, or was he playing to see report, called a “302.” what he could get? After all, he was About the practice of beheadings, sprung from jail in India by militants Sheikh said, “I think it strikes fear in who had demanded and won his the enemy.” freedom in return for passengers But, about Pearl’s murder, he aboard a hijacked Indian passen- said, “My intention was to kidnap ger flight. By his account, he was him, not kill him,” and that “I’ve got going to free the American he kid- nothing against Jews per se, it’s the napped in India, Bela Nuss. Police Zionist policies.” He added: “I would investigators familiar with Sheikh target a Zionist, not a Jew. … I knew see him as a man who approached that Daniel Pearl was a Jew before his crime as a tactical strategist, like the second e-mail; I read it in the the chess champion that he was as newspapers. … When I said to re- a British schoolboy, rather than as lease him, referring to Daniel Pearl, a cold-blooded killer. Even before they already knew he was a Jew.” the Pearl kidnapping, he had evaded (That is questionable: The article U.S. efforts to extradite him for the identifying Pearl as Jewish was pub- Delhi kidnapping. lished on January 30, 2001, the day On March 10, 2002, about four after Sheikh had told his lieutenants weeks after ISI officials handed to edit his second ransom note to Sheikh over to police custody, claim that Pearl was an agent for Is- FBI agent Tarine “Ty” Fairman sat rael’s Mossad.) across from Sheikh, plying him and But he said Pearl’s captors had to the Pakistani intelligence and po- hold him once the local newspapers lice officials in the room with tea revealed he was Jewish. “Those peo- and cookies. Fairman had never ple couldn’t release him once they been in Pakistan before, but he did found out he was a Jew,” he said. know how to build rapport. Sheikh Sheikh said another militant had told the agent his life story. “Omar told him Pearl was a “reporter who stated that the first time he did a wished to infiltrate a number of Ji- kidnapping he had sort of a pain of hadi organizations, and interview

their leaders,” which was an indica- a crime of opportunity. Pearl’s pok- tor for him that he was working for ing around, looking for Reid’s facili- the CIA. tator, might have raised alarms that Sheikh told the FBI agent, “I feel Pearl would stumble across family bad, I tricked him, Pearl, into com- business and ultimately learn that ing there and he was killed.” Later in KSM’s nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, the interview, he said, “Daniel Pearl was actually Reid’s facilitator. would not be dead if I didn’t do what While KSM slipped back into Al I did.” He acknowledged, “I feel Qaeda’s furtive network in Pakistan, sorry for Pearl’s wife,” but added, a manhunt was closing in on Omar “What should I do? Give food pack- Sheikh. ets to Mrs. Pearl, like the Americans As it turned out, February 4, 2002, dropped food packets to the Afghan was a critical day for the investiga- people?” tion — and would become a very It would be four months before problematic one. Across the bus- Pakistani police would get a clue tling city of more than 12 million, about what happened inside the police SWAT teams fanned out to secret compound outside Karachi. nab Sheikh’s kidnapping associates That break came when Fazal Karim, one by one. a guard, was picked up in connec- There was mounting pressure on tion with the bombing of the Shera- Pakistani law enforcement officials ton Karachi Hotel on May 8. By then, to find the abducted American jour- the trail to the killers had long gone nalist before it was too late. Pearl cold. had gone missing on January 23, For the moment, the cops would 2002, and now, twelve days later, his only be left with clues to the master- friends, family, and colleagues con- mind, Omar Sheikh, and his low-lev- tinued to hold out hope for his safe el operatives — men who never wit- return despite threatening ransom nessed Pearl’s captivity or murder. notes. There is nothing that indicates Police surrounded the homes of that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the members of Sheikh’s extended fam- alleged 9/11 mastermind who later ily, demanding to know Sheikh’s confessed to killing Pearl, was in on whereabouts and threatening to de- the original kidnapping plan so, for tain those related to him. him, Pearl’s murder may have been As the pressure on his family in-

Omar Sheikh’s uncle, Rauf Sheikh, is a judge at the Lahore High Court in Lahore, Pakistan. Omar Sheikh came from a well-off family with connections to the government. Credit: Derek Henry Flood

tensified, Sheikh’s father and uncle distinguished. He was a judge in convinced him to surrender. Punjab province, which includes the Unlike Omar, these were respect- historic city of Lahore. able men. Saeed Ahmed Sheikh, the The police strategy worked. father, had obtained British citizen- Judge Sheikh later testified in court ship in 1986. As a royal chartered ac- that he called a senior police official countant he had enjoyed a prosper- in Lahore, asking the authorities to ous life in London, sending his other go easy on the family and that he children to Oxford and Cambridge. would produce his fugitive nephew. The uncle, Rauf Sheikh, was no less That afternoon, February 5, the fa-

ther and uncle told the court, they father made no mention of the ISI, went to a mosque in a neighborhood simply stating that they handed the called Gulberg in the heart of La- young man over to Lahore police, hore. Shortly before early afternoon asking the police not to beat him. prayers, the younger Sheikh arrived, Whether Sheikh sought refuge in the father and uncle later said. They Shah’s custody because there was a said he assured them that he wasn’t family connection and would, there- involved. fore, provide a soft landing into the To piece together what happened legal system, or whether it was be- next requires picking through a near- cause Sheikh had a long history with impenetrable morass of facts and the ISI is still unresolved. rumors. It has provided fodder for This interlude has raised numer- conspiracy theories which, appropri- ous questions. Was the ISI protect- ately enough, revolve around what- ing Sheikh? Was it holding him to ever connections Omar Sheikh may make sure he wouldn’t spill any of have had with Pakistan’s powerful, its secrets? Was Omar Sheikh hop- secretive intelligence service, the In- ing the intelligence service — per- ter-Services Intelligence Directorate haps the most powerful institution (ISI), Pakistan’s version of the CIA. in Pakistan — would provide him What retired Gen. Ehsanul Haq, some protection? Most provocative- the ISI chief at the time, acknowl- ly, were elements in the ISI, which edged in an interview with the Pearl have backed the Taliban and Paki- Project is that on February 5, Omar stan militant groups, knowledgeable Sheikh gave himself up to Ejaz Shah, about Omar Sheikh’s kidnapping ac- the home secretary for the province tivities? Even worse, was the ISI in- of Punjab, a retired army brigadier volved? Haq denied any ISI involve- and close ally of then-Pakistan Pres- ment in the kidnapping. ident Pervez Musharraf. Sheikh told On such questions, American of- the FBI he was in Shah’s care for the ficials found their Pakistani allies seven days. Shah had worked as an distinctly unhelpful. If there was a intelligence officer for the ISI. He limit to Pakistani cooperation, the also came from the same ancestral subject of the ISI was it. In an in- village, Nankana Sahib, as Omar terview, Chris Reimann, the FBI’s Sheikh’s mother. Later, in court tes- legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in timony, Omar Sheikh’s uncle and Islamabad during the Pearl investi-

gation, confirmed his understanding that Sheikh was held in ISI custody for at least five days. Reimann said, “During the Pearl investigation, I was upset when I found out, when it became public knowledge that Omar had been secretly kept in ISI custody. I contacted my Pakistani intel sources, but no one would tell me what happened or what Omar said.” Reimann said that he had assumed that Ejaz Shah, the former ISI officer, was a relative of Sheikh’s. Former FBI case agent Jay Ka- netkar, who oversaw the Pearl investigation from the FBI’s Newark, Chris Reimann was the FBI’s New Jersey, office, said that he had legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy always wondered what happened in Islamabad during the Pearl during the time Sheikh spent in ISI investigation. Credit: Claire Callagy custody. “That has never been resolved,” he said. “It will probably never be resolved.” from the FBI’s New York office. After the “seven lost days,” on He had a lead, Mulligan recalled. A February 12, Sheikh was handed “source” had a “source” who said over to the Pakistani police in La- that he had a video that documented hore. It would be another month Pearl’s murder, Mulligan said. “We until he was formally charged by the had about 20 minutes from when I Pakistanis — by then not only with got the call that he was willing to the kidnapping but also the murder make the deal,” Mulligan said. “All of Pearl, whose barbaric slaughter I knew was, ‘Hey, I gotta get this.’ had been captured on video. If he says he’s only going to give it On February 21, 2002, FBI spe- to somebody from NBC News, then cial agent John Mulligan fielded an that’s who I’m gonna be.” unexpected phone call at the U.S. That evening, Khalid Choudhary, Consulate. It was an agent-friend a man standing a shade over six-feet

tall, crossed the lobby of the Karachi posedly under surveillance by Paki- Sheraton to meet Mulligan. Ironi- stani police. According to one FBI cally, both introduced themselves as official, the plan was for Choudhary journalists. Choudhary called him- to return later to collect his pay- self “Abdul Khalique” from Online ment when the tape’s authenticity International News Network, Mulli- had been verified; the plan was to gan recalled. He and a second FBI give him a bag packed with money agent posed as reporters for NBC and a secret tracking device to lead News. In the man’s hand: a compact investigators to other participants digital video camera. in the plot. However, after word of Choudhary had gotten the video the tape leaked out, the kidnappers from a young man, Fazal Karim, didn’t answer their phones. who had been a guard during Pearl’s U.S. documents identified Choud- captivity. Karim later told police his hary as a U.S. citizen with an exten- militant boss had told him to pub- sive drug-related criminal record in lish Pearl’s murder video, and he New York City going back to 1992. had asked a friend, Shaikh Shahid, a The Pearl Project confirmed his militant whom he believed was rais- identity with a brother of Choud- ing funds for the Taliban in Karachi, hary, who lives in Orlando, Florida. for help in selling the murder video. In Karachi, Pakistani police in- Shahid introduced Karim to Choud- terviewed Choudhary, as did FBI hary, who told him he had a buyer. agents, but former FBI agent Tarine He didn’t tell him it was the FBI. “Ty” Fairman called Choudhary “one “Probably the most nervous I’ve of those no-touch people.” Fairman ever been in my career was when last saw Choudhary leaving the U.S. we got the tape,” Mulligan recalled. Consulate in Karachi with a Paki- He stood face to face with the man stani police escort. for the exchange. The price to be During the time between when paid to Online International News Sheikh was taken into police custo- Network if the tape proved to be au- dy in February and the trial began in thentic: $200,000. April, Sheikh was frequently inter- At 9:40 p.m. Karachi time, Mulli- rogated. At times he refused to eat gan got custody of the tape. or speak. An FBI agent documented Choudhary walked away from that Pakistani police, known for the meeting at the Sheraton, sup- harsh interrogation techniques, put

him through what was euphemisti- him. “That’s Mukhtar,” and he over- cally called “softening” while inter- saw the operational details for 9/11, viewing him. Zubaydah said, according to FBI In part for these reasons, before a agents familiar with the case. trial in Pakistan began, U.S. officials U.S. officials said that Padilla decided not to press for extradi- said that, after meeting Zubaydah in tion of Sheikh to face a subsequent Faisalabad, he met Al Qaeda opera- American trial for the kidnapping. tives KSM, Ramzi bin Al Shibh, and “It would be a nightmare of a case,” KSM’s younger nephew, Ali Abdul according to Kanetkar, the FBI case Aziz Ali, at a safehouse in Karachi agent. And he said that “the U.S. did in March to discuss “a nuclear/dirty not want to do anything that would bomb operation.” It didn’t take so- cause the Pakistani government” to phisticated data analysis to see that, release or retry Omar Sheikh. while there wasn’t a direct line to be There were other priorities, too. drawn from Pearl’s case to those of Pearl was dead, the U.S. was still some of the deadliest terror plots to hunting Osama bin Laden, and it date, there were certainly overlap- hadn’t caught the operational chief ping circles. KSM and his nephew, as for 9/11. Finally, in March, the U.S. well as Richard Reid, all intersected got a break, not in the Pearl case, with the Pearl case. but in the 9/11 case. With these pressures, Pakistan’s In the city of Faisalabad in the leader, President Pervez Musharraf, province of Punjab, in a bloody wasn’t inclined to send Sheikh nighttime raid, Pakistani and U.S. for an American trial. A powerful forces nabbed an Al Qaeda opera- though divisive political figure at tional man, Abu Zubaydah, out of a home, Musharraf wanted to show safe house he had set up for char- Washington that he was fully an ally acters such as “dirty bomber” Jose in the terrorism fight. On March 28, Padilla, “shoe bomber” Richard a month before the trial got under- Reid, and French Muslim operative way, The Washington Post quoted Zacarias Moussaoui, according to U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy the U.S. Defense Department. An Chamberlin as saying that Mush- FBI agent put a photo in front of him arraf had unequivocal words on the that Frank Pellegrino, an FBI agent subject of extraditing Omar Sheikh: tracking KSM for years, had given “I’d rather hang him myself.” n

3PART 8 SHOW CONTENTS PART 104 The Truth Left Behind | Part 10 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 82 Rushing to Judgment By Barbara Feinman Todd, Asra Q. Nomani, Rochelle S. Hall, Katherine Major, and Rachel Claytor

wo months after Omar TSheikh and his cohorts were appre- hended, the Pakistani judicial system was putting into place all the pieces necessary to try the four men in a court of law. But what followed turned out to be less about meting out justice and more Raja Qureshi prosecuted Omar Sheikh, Fahad about putting a quick Naseem, Salman Saqib, and Sheikh Mohammad end to this embarrass- Adij for their roles in Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping ing incident. and murder. Some have raised questions about the The trial was closed qaulity of the evidence. Credit: Derek Henry Flood to the public. Through interviews with those in attendance as well as a close ex- unfolded in the three-month trial, amination of the voluminous 2,400 offering a rare window into the pages of court records chronicling Pakistani judicial system and its the case, the Pearl Project has tenuous relationship with the ideal stitched together much of what of the rule of law.

Clockwise from top left: Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib, Sheikh Mohammad Adij, and Omar Sheikh. All four were convicted for the Pearl murder. Credit: Pakistani Police

Sheikh, who arranged Pearl’s ab- and a move from Karachi to Hyder- duction, was charged with kidnap- abad, a smaller city 100 miles to the ping and murder — still, the actual northeast, prosecutor Raja Qureshi killers were still at large in Paki- successfully fought attempts by stan. Undaunted, Pakistan’s unique defense attorneys to open the trial form of justice rolled forward. to the public. This rocky beginning As the trial, which began on was only a harbinger of what was April 22, 2002, progressed through to come: a carnival atmosphere that two changes of presiding judges was defined by its frequent delays

and theatrical disruptions. oted on two points: (1) whether or The Hyderabad courtroom itself not Sheikh was at the restaurant was stifling hot, a single fan creak- where Pearl was last seen in public ing overhead. The defendants were and (2) significant inconsistencies in cages to one side of the court- in the February timeline concern- room and they spent much of their ing when Sheikh was taken into po- time leering and shouting threats lice custody. and obscenities at the prosecution The Pearl Project’s examination and the prosecution’s witnesses. of Pakistani police files and the On May 8, Sheikh’s co-defen- court record found major discrep- dants — Fahad Naseem, Salman ancies between them. What sus- Saqib, and Mohammad Sheikh pects and witnesses told investiga- Adil, represented by their attorney tors was at direct odds with what Rai Bashir Ahmad — made vague police and others testified in court. threats to “boycott” the trial unless Indeed, Pakistan police officials ac- it was opened to the public. In his knowledged in interviews that pros- filing, Bashir argued that the world ecutors and police fixed the trial by would be watching to “see whether fabricating a story to place Sheikh the trial of the case was being con- at Pearl’s abduction and inducing ducted impartially without any fear witnesses to lie to corroborate the and favor.” fabrication on these points. Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Syed The prosecutor called his first Ali Ashraf Shah, citing the security witness: Nasir Abbas, the 36-year- concerns that had caused the trial old cab driver who had dropped to be moved from Karachi to the Pearl off at the Village Restaurant. more secure Hyderabad Prison, de- He had initially told police that he nied the defense motion. An excep- hadn’t seen anyone greet the jour- tion was made for Omar Sheikh’s nalist when he dropped him off. father, who was given permission Now, he had something different to by the provincial government to at- say. It was critical to the prosecu- tend the trial. tion strategy. The witnesses for the prosecu- As he pulled up at the Village tion consisted of 23 people, while Restaurant, Abbas testified, a white the defense called only two. Toyota Corolla drove up with four Much of the trial’s outcome piv- men inside and parked in front

of his taxi. A man stepped out of the car and shook hands with Pearl, greeting him in English. The cab driver, who said he didn’t speak English, said he couldn’t understand what was said. Pearl opened the door to the Corolla, got inside, and the Corolla drove off. That was a surprise to Pearl’s wife Mari- A series of documents and translations relating to ane and friend Asra Omar Sheikh’s 2002 trial for Pearl’s murder. Nomani. The day after Credit: Derek Henry Flood Pearl disappeared, the driver had given them a different account, saying that he the Corolla. In a lineup, he identi- hadn’t seen Pearl shake anyone’s fied Sheikh and the three co-defen- hand or even greet anyone in any dants. Ten minutes later, he said, way. Nor had he bothered to men- the lineup changed, and he again tion the Toyota Corolla. picked out Sheikh and his three co- In court, Abbas testified that on defendants. February 5, police charged him as The next day, Abbas said, he re- a suspect and had him lead them ceived notice to appear before a to the place where Pearl had been judge on March 6. There, he was dropped off. The taxi driver, who asked whether he could identify said he couldn’t read Urdu, said the man who had shaken hands police told him to sign papers they with Pearl at the Village Restaurant. handed him, before freeing him. Confidently, he said, he answered, Abbas said police later took him “Yes.” Abbas returned, he said, on to a Karachi police station to try March 9 to give police a statement. to identify the men who stood by During cross-examination, Ab-

bas fervently denied ever having “I worried [that] the contradic- been cajoled by police to change tion between Fazal Karim and what his testimony. But according to two the taxi driver said would result in Pakistani police officials and a U.S. a mistrial,” Bauman said. “I sug- official familiar with the case, the gested to the security higher ups to police and prosecution engineered get the taxi driver to recant his tes- the testimony to give the pros- timony. … I assumed that pressure ecution an eyewitness who placed was put on the driver to make up Sheikh with Pearl. the story.” At the time, Bauman sent In Karachi, U.S. Consul General his bosses in Washington a cable, John Bauman worried about the “Pearl Case: The White Toyota-Red taxi driver’s testimony. Looking Suzuki Dilemma.” back, Bauman said in an interview What Bauman discovered hap- with the Pearl Project that he has pening behind the scenes was even no doubts that Sheikh and his co- more disturbing. Bauman wrote defendants “were guilty of dream- his bosses that Pakistani officials ing up the idea of kidnapping Dan- told him that they considered an ny.” But he said he was troubled option to “lock up the suspect and that the testimony of the taxi driver wait to ‘discover’ the site until after contradicted the statement of an al- the trial of Sheikh Umer is success- leged guard, Fazal Karim, who had fully concluded,” but the news was suddenly emerged in the midst of leaked to the local Associated Press the trial, leading police to the site reporter. In a heated meeting at the of Pearl’s remains. Sindh home secretary’s office, Bau- In a wide dragnet against mili- man and the consulate regional se- tants, trying to find suspects in a curity officer, Randall Bennett, met May 2002 suicide bombing at the secretly with the home secretary, Karachi Sheraton, police caught the police chief, the prosecutor, another alleged guard in the Pearl and the ISI chief for Karachi, along case, Mazharul Hassan, with copies with others. Bauman argued that of the murder video, and he led po- the government should restart the lice to Karim, according to a police trial to include all of the evidence. official. Karim told police that Pearl He wrote in the cable, “As noted had been picked up not in a white in previous trial reports, in its zeal Corolla but in a red Suzuki Alto car. to convict Sheikh Umer despite

meager physical evidence and no es, Investigation Officer Hameedul- eyewitnesses, the prosecution ap- lah Memon, who testified for five parently induced at least two wit- days, longer than any other witness. nesses to perjure themselves.” According to Memon, the police But, at the secret meeting, the traced the e-mails and photos an- prosecutor argued that if they re- nouncing Pearl’s kidnapping and started the trial “the defense would ransom request to Speedy Internet, have a tremendous advantage,” a Karachi Internet café owned by a Bauman wrote in his cable, quoting Pakistani, Sheikh Naeem. Naeem the prosecutor saying, “They have produced records which pointed already seen my game plan.” The to defendant Fahad Naseem. Ac- prosecutor prevailed. Bauman told cording to Memon, on February his higher-ups in Washington that 11 at 1:30 a.m., Naeem led police the Pakistani government officials to Naseem’s house. Memon rang chose to keep the witness “secret.” Naseem’s doorbell and when the “Paradoxically, the unexpected defendant answered, Naeem iden- discovery of Daniel Pearl’s remains tified him. The police immediately could sabotage the prosecution’s arrested Naseem, and Memon said case against Sheikh Umar Saeed they found, sitting on a table in and his co-defendants,” Bauman plain view, a laptop computer and wrote. “This attempt to try the kid- hard drive, a scanner, and the two nappers first and then try the killers e-mails announcing Pearl’s kidnap- could easily go awry.” ping, in English and Urdu. The guard’s testimony never From there, they were led by made it to court. Naseem to his older cousin Saqib, Besides the taxi driver’s flawed who led police to Adil, a renegade story, the other critical hole in the cop who was part of the conspiracy. prosecution’s case comes from the And Adil, in turn, the story went, major discrepancies in the timeline led them to Sheikh, who was wait- and circumstances of Sheikh’s de- ing under the “Lipton Tea sign” at tention. the Karachi Airport. The official version of how the The key points that Memon — Karachi police found and arrested and the prosecution — were try- the four defendants was told by the ing to make was that the raids took last of the prosecution’s 23 witness- place on February 11, not on Febru-

ary 4, and that Omar Sheikh was in He said he videotaped the newscast Karachi. There was no basis, how- and he had that to offer as evidence ever, for the idea that Sheikh was to support his testimony. picked up, loitering at the Karachi This timeline discrepancy re- airport. garding when Sheikh was taken It made for a tidy story but the into police custody is particularly audacious claim about the dates relevant not just because the evi- was contradicted both by tangible dence contradicts the police’s ver- evidence, the statements of police sion, but because it speaks to that officials in February, and the alter- “lost seven days” when Sheikh was native logistics set out by Sheikh’s in the custody of Pakistan’s intel- father and uncle. ligence service, the ISI — an event On February 5, 2002, Omar still shrouded in mystery. Sheikh’s father, Saeed Ahmed Bauman, U.S. Consul General in Sheikh, said he returned to his Karachi during Pearl’s kidnapping, home in the city of Lahore from referred to the missing days in a the mosque after the pre-dawn May 22, 2002, e-mail to Pearl family prayer when he learned that police members and Wall Street Journal were surrounding various relatives’ reporters. In the e-mail, Bauman homes in pursuit of his son. The el- noted the testimony of a prosecu- der Sheikh testified in court that he tion witness, Zaheer Ahmed, a local and his wife’s brother, Rauf Sheikh, carpet-maker: “Zaheer claimed that a provincial judge, decided they the raids took place on the night of had to find Omar and convince him February 11-12, whereas they ac- to surrender. Judge Sheikh testified tually took place on February 4-5. he “handed over” his nephew later This is an obvious attempt to gloss that day to a Lahore police investi- over the week of February 5-12 gator. when [Omar Sheikh] claims he was On February 12, 2002, at about in ISI custody.” 9 p.m., Sheikh’s father testified, he In addition to the timelines for was watching PTV, the government- the defendants’ arrests, other key run television broadcaster, which evidence was shown to be unreli- reported that police had arrested able. his son in Lahore and handed him The prosecution’s handwriting over to the Sindh provincial police. expert, Ghulam Akbar, testified

that the original hand- written texts of what became the ransom e- mails sent by the kidnappers matched the handwriting samples given by the defendants. Under cross- examination, however, Akbar admitted that he had no training or degrees in handwriting analysis and that “there are persons who can write the Defense attorney Khawaja Naveed Ahmed same in similar hand- represented Sheikh Mohammad Adil, Fahad writing.” Naseem and Salman Saqib in the 2002 trial for More damaging Pearl’s murder. Credit: Derek Henry Flood to the case against Sheikh was police investigator Memon’s admission that Wilczynski was going to testify. that the recorded serial number of On the stand for just 10 minutes, he the laptop seized by police did not testified that on February 4, he had match the serial number of the lap- been given a laptop computer. That top examined by FBI agent Ronald date matches the date of the raids, J. Wilczynski. not the date a week later that Paki- Wilczynski, a computer forensics stani police cited as the day they expert, was called by the prosecu- seized the laptop at the younger tion and flew to Pakistan to tes- cousin Naseem’s house during his tify. Though suffering from kidney arrest. stones, his return home was de- Wilczynski also testified that he layed because he ended up having had found vital information in the to return to court a second day, a computer’s unallocated space, even week later, due to the defense’s ob- though it had been reformatted. jection that they had not been told The FBI agent also found webpages

that showed browsing to news web- conclusion that contrary to what sites prior to the kidnapping and we thought earlier he is not work- Naseem’s résumé and cover letter ing for the cia. therefore we are re- to potential employers. leasing him unconditionally.” It was The defendants glared at the the original note that Sheikh had witnesses as they testified, Wilc- written. It confirmed just slightly zynski later said. They made lewd Omar Sheikh’s claim that he wasn’t and threatening gestures at the part of a plan to murder Pearl. prosecutor, sometimes drawing a Police couldn’t assert a specific finger across the neck in a slash- day when Pearl was murdered. ing gesture, another court observ- There was no time stamp on the er said. The defense attorney, Rai murder video, and, at that point, po- Bashir Ahmad, played to senti- lice didn’t have many leads to the ments inside militancy culture that actual day the murder occurred. demonized Westerners, insinuating Sheikh said he wasn’t in Karachi. ties with Jews, a target of mistrust On July 15, 2002, the judge is- among many in the militancy. “Are sued the verdict against Sheikh and you a Jew!?” the defense attorney his three co-defendants: guilty. shouted at the FBI agent as he The judge found that all four took the stand, Wilczynski recalled had “committed murder of Daniel later. When Naseem’s laptop was Pearl by slaughtering and caused presented as evidence, wrapped in the evidence of the dead body to brown paper with a string around disappear.” He sentenced Sheikh to it, the elderly judge said, “That’s death and his co-defendants to life not a computer.” After a moment imprisonment. of commotion, the judge agreed it In his 54-page decision, the judge was a computer and admitted it as essentially ignored the discrepan- evidence. cies between the police and defense Though called by the prosecu- timelines. For instance, he stated tion, Wilczynski ended up strength- that although the FBI computer ex- ening a part of the defense’s case. pert testified that he had received He testified that he had found the laptop on February 4, 2002, “the the ransom note on the laptop examination logically could have that read, “We have interogated been conducted by him” between mr.D.Parl and we have come to the February 11 and 15.

Nearby, AFP reporter Mazhar Ab- murder. The actual killers were still bas broke the story of the convic- free in Pakistan. Indeed, missing in tions, but, like other Pakistani jour- the court room — and unmentioned nalists, he was privy to the secret by either prosecution or defense — of the witness, Fazal Karim, that were the names of the three men police and prosecutors had decided who investigators now say mur- to hide. “Omar was not there for the dered Daniel Pearl or the 20 other killing. That’s why they didn’t bring men allegedly involved in his ab- anyone else in that was involved duction. in the killing — to not undermine While the Pakistani judicial sys- Omar’s arrest,” Abbas told the Pearl tem had put a close to the Pearl Project. case, Pakistani police continued to Outside the jail, Bashir, the de- pick up the real perpetrators and fense lawyer, told reporters he re- keep the U.S. government in the jected the verdict, claiming that loop — but U.S. officials were not Pakistani President Pervez Mush- following up the leads. arraf had buckled to pressure from In late August 2002, U.S. officials the U.S. to get a guilty verdict. He reported back to Washington, D.C., read a statement from Sheikh say- that a Karachi police officer told ing: “We shall see who will die first: them about the arrest of Muham- either I or the authorities who have mad Muzzamil, a guard in the Pearl arranged the death sentence for me. captivity who had gotten nauseated The war between Islam and kafirs as Pearl was about to be killed. He [non-Muslims] is going on and ev- said he had “tied hands and legs of erybody should show whether he Daniel Pearl on instructions by Ar- is in favour of Islam or in favour of abs,” a cable reported. The regional kafirs.” security officer, Randall Bennett, If a guilty verdict were the intent, asked the Pakistani government if prosecutors had certainly achieved he could be present during police it — and in the face of consider- interviews. It appears he never got able contradictory evidence. While permission. n Sheikh orchestrated the plot to kidnap Pearl and his three co-defendants were guilty of aiding him, none were actually present for the

3PART 9 SHOW CONTENTS PART 114 The Truth Left Behind | Part 11 ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 92 Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Kira Zalan, Rebecca Tapscott, Bonnie Rollins, Karina Hurley and Dmitri Ivashchenko

n Thursday, October 16, 2003, a Owarm and slightly overcast day in Washing- ton, D.C., White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice called Daniel Pearl’s widow, Mar- iane, with some startling information. It was their first conversation ever, and Mariane was caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been held for off guard. years at Guatanamo Bay prison, where he In a cool voice, Rice de- admitted to killing Pearl. He has yet to be livered blockbuster news tried. Credit: Spc. Cody Black/U.S. Army that would tie the Pearl abduction-murder to the horrors of the 9/11 attacks that pre- called, was the alleged mastermind ceded it. “We have now established behind the 9/11 attacks. enough links and credible evidence “What do you mean ‘involved’?” to think that Khalid Sheikh Moham- Mariane Pearl asked. Since the ear- med was involved in your husband’s liest days of discovering that her murder,” Rice said. KSM, as he was husband had been murdered, she

had suspected Al Qaeda’s involve- minds that this was an important ment. She had never been satisfied development in the investigation of with the July 2002 convictions of the murder of their colleague. And Omar Sheikh and three co-defen- Rice had not specifically requested dants as closing the case. that the conversation be considered “We think he committed the ac- off the record, that is, not usable for tual murder,” Rice responded. publication. The editors decided to Rice doled out her information run a story in the newspaper’s Mon- selectively. She didn’t tell Mariane day edition. Bussey passed the as- Pearl how officials had reached signment to Steve LeVine, who had that conclusion or what evidence known Pearl and worked with him they had to back it up. She did not in Pakistan. offer any proof that KSM was the On Friday, the day after Rice killer, nor identify his accomplices called Mariane, Frederick Jones II, in the murder. Most significantly, deputy press secretary at the Na- Rice didn’t let on to what was then tional Security Council, called back one of the Bush administration’s after learning that The Wall Street most closely-held secrets — that Journal was preparing a news sto- KSM was being held in a secret CIA ry. According to the widow, he ex- prison and had been subjected to pressed outrage. “We’re angry that waterboarding and other hard-core the Wall Street Journal is doing interrogation techniques. Those a story. We called The Wall Street facts would turn out to have major Journal as Danny’s employer,” consequences. They both raised Jones told Mariane. questions about the reliability of Jones later told the Pearl Proj- KSM’s confession and created a ect that he could not recall details major obstacle to ever trying him about the phone call, but he said in a U.S. criminal court for Pearl’s Rice would have made the call to murder. Steiger assuming it would be off Rice made a similar call to The the record, not to be published, Wall Street Journal’s managing edi- since the Pearl investigation was tor Paul Steiger, who in turn called ongoing. The Wall Street Journal John Bussey, the paper’s foreign had spoken to U.S. officials during editor, to discuss running a story. the investigation to find Pearl with There was no question in their those ground rules. Rice “would

have called Steiger as someone who the issue of whether a confession had been involved in the story and extracted from waterboarding was [as] this gentleman’s employer,” reliable. Experts say that someone Jones said. “We do a lot of things as subject to torture will say anything humans and as people. Daniel Pearl to make it stop. was another American citizen that FBI agent Michael Dick, one of people cared about.” the agents sent to Pakistan imme- In response to the National Secu- diately after Pearl’s abduction, still rity Council’s concerns, the editors was looking for some confirmation agreed to cite Rice anonymously in early 2004, some four months as a “government official” in the after the Journal’s story on KSM. article. That gave Rice some deni- He knew that the alleged 9/11 mas- ability and made it harder for oth- termind was in secret custody. He er reporters to advance the story, wasn’t privy to the interrogation which might have led them in the tactics used against KSM. direction of the CIA’s secret activi- Dick edited the Pearl murder vid- ties. Renditions, secret prisons, and eo to create still photos of frames of “black sites” weren’t yet part of the video that showed the hand of the post-9/11 lexicon. Journalists the masked killer. His idea was to would only soon start writing about see if the beefy right hand matched secret detentions. KSM’s. He turned to a CIA officer Despite the certainty expressed assigned to the FBI as a liaison offi- by Rice, KSM’s culpability was not a cer. Dick asked him: Could he send sure thing to everyone. His possible the still to his CIA colleagues hold- role had surfaced in a January 26, ing KSM? The liaison officer agreed 2003, Time magazine story when re- to the request. A response soon ar- porters identified KSM as the man rived: “The photo you sent me and wielding the knife, citing Pakistani the hand of our friend inside the police interrogation of a guard, cage seem identical to me.” Fazal Karim. Still, could the confes- The distinguishable feature: the sion of a top terrorist be believed or bulging vein that ran across the was he just eager to boost his own murderer’s hand. Vascular technol- importance by claiming respon- ogy, or “vein-matching,” is a foren- sibility for a string of high-profile sics technology that has not been terrorist acts? Further, there was widely tested. It’s popular among

some forensics experts, but is not agent walked away, frustrated. as reliable as other biometrics tech- In 2006, in a nondescript building niques such as fingerprints. How- in the northern Virginia suburbs, ever, the CIA and FBI sometimes outside Washington, D.C., retired use this type of technology in order Army Col. Robert Swann, a lead to identify suspects. By extract- military prosecutor, sat at his coming the information of the vascular puter and accessed a database with structure of a hand or finger and the interrogation reports, eviden- converting it into a mathematical tiary files, and other information quantity, this technology creates against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a template for each structure and and the other high value detainees. then compares the template of a Among the evidence Swann known individual to a suspect. pulled up were two images. Col. The FBI agent was ecstatic. Morris Davis, chief prosecutor for This was informal confirmation, the Guantanamo Bay military com- and now he wanted to go through missions at the time, studied them channels to get official documenta- quickly. One was a still of the kill- tion to add to the evidence against er’s hand, the one from the video. KSM. He asked Jay Kanetkar, the There was just one murder video FBI case agent on the Pearl case, that the FBI had received; but it had to send a forensic scientist to KSM been edited for distribution on the to confirm the match. Eager to get Internet. The video in FBI custody the evidence, Dick went to the act- has better resolution than the one ing chief in his unit, Ed Dickson. circulated on the Internet. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” Dickson The second image was a close up responded, according to people fa- of KSM’s hand in the same position, miliar with the conversation. photographed while he was in CIA The agent protested. Dickson re- custody. Davis had heard the story iterated his point: “Don’t mess with of how KSM was told to hold his the case.” The caution reflected hand in a specific pose — to repli- two concerns: keeping distance cate the video image — but wasn’t from CIA activities and upsetting told why he had to hold it that way. the Omar Sheikh convictions by And, indeed, forensic experts bringing in a suspect who actually had found that the hands matched wielded the murder weapon. The precisely, down to the pattern

of the vein that crossed over the would say they weren’t involved back of the hand. “Looking at the in the Pearl case, and their cases two photos, there was nothing that should be separated from KSM’s stood out to me to contradict that case. Complicating matters, U.S. conclusion,” Davis, who has since officials had initially gotten KSM’s left the military to become execu- murder confession during the con- tive director of the Crimes of War troversial interrogation tactic of Project, a non-profit group based “waterboarding” — casting doubt in Washington, D.C., told the Pearl that it could be used in court. Project. “I have no reason to doubt For the time being, then, the that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed complete truth about Pearl would killed Daniel Pearl.” have to wait. Beyond KSM’s confes- By the summer of 2006, the Bush sion, the U.S. government has never administration was in a quandary revealed any corroborating evi- about how to pursue a 9/11 case dence. After scores of interviews, against the high-value detainees, the Pearl Project found that the including KSM. In a July 2006 meet- best evidence U.S. officials have ing, more than a dozen people gath- against KSM is the vein match. ered around a conference table at the U.S. Justice Department, not On September 6, 2006, almost far from the room where the U.S. five years after the attacks on the had held proceedings on Nazi war World Trade Center, President criminals. This time, Justice De- Bush publicly acknowledged for partment, CIA, and military lawyers the first time that the United State gathered, including Davis, the mili- had secret prisons outside the tary prosecutor. country where “high value” detain- The team believed KSM’s confes- ees — mainly suspects in the “war sion of the Pearl murder, Davis re- on terror” — were held and inter- called. But it had a strategy for bun- rogated. That month, “high value” dling the cases against five of the detainees were transferred to the detainees, including KSM, for the U.S. Defense Department’s prison 9/11 attacks. If KSM was charged at Guantanamo Bay. Among them: with the Pearl case, too, it would Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his unravel the prosecutorial strategy young nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. because the other four defendants The news that KSM had been water-

boarded a total of 183 times would Gonzales called Pearl’s parents to come out only later. let them know they were about to In early 2007, John Bauman, who release KSM’s confession to the had been U.S. consul general in public. Ruth Pearl, the slain jour- Karachi at the time of Pearl’s kid- nalist’s mother, remembered, “We napping, had an opportunity to talk spent most of the evening convinc- firsthand to Rice — by then Secre- ing him personally that publishing tary of State — about KSM’s confes- the statement will only serve KSM sion. He had moved to Berlin in late and will not be in the interest of 2002 as minister-counselor for po- the United States to give him that litical affairs at the U.S. Embassy. platform. He was convinced and On February 5, 2007, Bauman was stopped it, but at five in the morn- assigned to greet Rice at the Berlin ing they let us know that it was airport. During the 10-minute ride leaked to the media.” to her hotel, Bauman reminded her At the Pentagon, Gordon started that his last assignment had been in redacting KSM’s statements about Karachi during the Pearl episode. Pearl’s murder and released the “Of course you know that KSM has redacted transcript. Across the Po- admitted to this,” she told him, ap- tomac River at the Justice Depart- parently satisfied that the issue was ment, Gonzales also called Mariane settled. Pearl to tell her the Defense De- The next month, the Pentagon partment was about to announce made public KSM’s confession. that KSM had confessed to killing On March 14, 2007, U.S. Navy Lt. her husband. Commander J.D. Gordon, a Penta- The next morning, the Defense gon spokesman, prepared to release Department released the full tran- the transcript of KSM’s proceedings script of the hearing, including the before a military tribunal four days confession redacted the night be- earlier in Guantanamo Bay. Dur- fore: “I decapitated with my blessed ing the course of that session, the right hand the head of the American Al Qaeda operational chief claimed Jew Daniel Pearl in the city of Kara- responsibility for Pearl’s murder, chi, Pakistan. For those who would along with a lengthy list of other at- like to confirm, there are pictures tacks and plots. of me on the Internet holding his U.S. Attorney General Alberto head.”

He went on to say the killing was Mulligan left the interview con- “not related” to Al Qaeda, but just vinced KSM was the murderer. Pel- to Pakistani “mujahedeen” groups. legrino wasn’t sure. It had been He said Pearl drew attention by a year and two months between seeking to track Richard Reid’s ac- Pearl’s murder and KSM’s arrest. tivities, and he repeated unfounded He could have learned details of allegations that Pearl was working the murder from other folks. But for the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. he had started the interview not In October 2007, at the Guanta- believing it was possible. After the namo Bay detention camp, KSM interview, he sat on the fence. had visitors. One he knew: FBI Back in the office, Pellegrino agent Frank Pellegrino, who had looked at the images of KSM’s pursued him since the first World hand and the killer’s hand. It was Trade Center bombing in 1993. He enough of a match that he couldn’t had interviewed him earlier in the rule KSM out. In Pakistan, the news year about 9/11. With him was an of KSM’s confession was music to FBI analyst and another agent, John the ears of Rai Bashir Ahmad, the Mulligan, who had jetted to Karachi grizzled defense attorney that Omar in the days after Pearl’s kidnapping. Sheikh had hired to defend him in “No one’s happy with the resolu- the 2002 case that sentenced him tion of the Daniel Pearl case,” said to death for Pearl’s kidnapping and an FBI agent. “If he did it, we want murder. Bashir said he would file a him prosecuted.” new appeal that rested on one new Pellegrino explained Mulligan fact: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s was there to ask about the Pearl confession. It would join a long list murder. First, the men took pho- of appeals, citing errors including tos of KSM’s hands in various posi- contradictions in the evidence in- tions. “I know what you’re doing,” troduced in trial. n Mohammed said at one point, re- peating what he had supposedly said in CIA custody. What they were doing was very simple: They wanted their own confirmation that KSM’s hand matched that of the man who killed Pearl.

3PART 10 SHOW CONTENTS EPILOGUE4 The Truth Left Behind | Epilogue ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 99 Waking Sleeping Dogs By Asra Q. Nomani, Barbara Feinman Todd, Katie Balestra, Kira Zalan, Jessica Rettig and Amanda Silverman

hough Daniel Pearl’s remains Thave long been recovered and laid to rest on a hilltop in Los Angeles, many loose ends to this story per- sist. And there are many casualties in this sad story. Omar Sheikh and his three associates were convicted in the summer of 2002 for Pearl’s Sheikh Mohammad Adil after his 2002 arrest for kidnapping and mur- Pearl’s murder. Credit: Tarine Fairman der and sit in jail to this day; despite their conviction for Pearl’s murder in Paki- familiar with the case told the Pearl stani court, the evidence of their Project that Sheikh, at least, will be direct role remains unconvincing. freed at some point. Attorneys for Sheikh and his Rai Bashir Ahmad, defense attor- three co-defendants have filed nu- ney for the four men, told the Pearl merous appeals that have been Project, “I believe the case will be postponed repeatedly, and people reversed on appeal, as soon as the

appeal shall be heard, because there is ab- solutely no concrete evidence against the accused.” Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who said he killed Pearl with his own hands, and one of his two nephews who may have assisted him are incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay; they await trial for their Maqbool-ur-Rehman served as defense attorney role in 9/11, but not for for Faisal Bhatti and Attaur Rehman. Both were Pearl’s murder. The sec- held as suspects but neither was formally charged. ond nephew who may Credit: Derek Henry Flood have been KSM’s other accomplice is thought to be in custody somewhere, but his After initially allowing the Pearl whereabouts cannot be confirmed. Project to interview certain FBI Another suspect, Faisal Bhatti, an al- agents, such as the legal attaché in leged logistical operator in Karachi, Islamabad during the Pearl case, is in jail in Pakistan for other charg- Chris Reimann, and the deputy le- es, but not the Pearl case. gal attaché, Jennifer Keenan, the Five other suspects have since FBI declined to comment on the died, violently or under suspicious findings of the investigation. An circumstances. And 14 others alleg- FBI spokesman said, “We are going edly involved in various ways with to hold off on discussing this until the plot are free. the military commissions are over.” Members of both Pakistani and On December 17, 2008, the Pearl U.S. government agencies involved Project filed a Freedom of Informa- in the case — investigators, diplo- tion lawsuit after our requests had mats, spies — have mostly moved on. been met with denials, responses

that no pertinent information could conviction to never forget, and to be found, or that we needed first never leave the truth behind. to obtain privacy waivers from What follows is an accounting suspects such as “shoe bomber” of the various individuals involved Richard Reid. As the Pearl Project with the case, either as perpetra- neared publication in January 2011, tors, co-conspirators, peripheral the government produced thou- players, or the bereaved. sands of pages of documents but much had been redacted and what The Convicted wasn’t consisted of media reports. Meanwhile, despite the Freedom of Omar Sheikh, who marked his Information Act lawsuit filed by the 37th birthday on December 23, Pearl Project, and the limited num- 2010, was the mastermind of the ber of responsive documents that Pearl kidnapping plot. Born in Lon- have been provided, the Obama ad- don to Pakistani parents, he had ministration continues to withhold been arrested in India in 1994 on thousands of documents that might kidnapping charges. In July 2002 he shed significant light on this case. was sentenced to death for Pearl’s Years after Pearl was killed, Ka- kidnapping and murder and is cur- rachi has turned into a safe haven rently in jail in Karachi, his convic- for not only Pakistani militants but tion and sentence under appeal. members of the Afghan Taliban. In February 2010, Pakistani intel- Sheikh Mohammad Adil assisted ligence officials touted the arrest in the logistics of the kidnap plan- of a Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul ning and ransom photo delivery. Ghani Baradar, in Karachi. Mem- A police constable of the Special bers of the Punjabi Taliban have Branch, a unit of the police associ- been linked to numerous suicide ated with intelligence gathering, he bomb attacks against mosques, was also a secret member of an Is- police stations, and bazaars with- lamic militant group, Harkat ul-Mu- in Pakistan, as well as to the 2008 jahideen. On February 4, 2002, Adil Mumbai attacks. was arrested. In July 2002, a Paki- Pearl’s friends, family, and col- stani court sentenced him to life in leagues have found different ways prison for his role in Pearl’s kidnap- of honoring him in their collective ping. His case is under appeal.

Salman Saqib assisted with scan- January 2002 through May 2006 ning the photos of Pearl and sending did not include Memon’s name. On out the ransom e-mails. On Febru- April 27, 2007, Memon, barely alive, ary 5, 2002, Pakistani police arrested was found dumped near his home. Saqib and, in July 2002, a Pakistani Memon, then 44, had been reduced court sentenced him to life in pris- to a skeleton. A week later, he was on. His case is under appeal. brought before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, where a judge ordered Fahad Naseem, a cousin of Salman that he be freed and taken to a hos- Saqib and an unemployed com- pital. He died there on May 18. puter programmer, assisted with scanning the photos of Pearl and Amjad Farooqi died a violent disseminating the ransom e-mails. death. According to Sheikh’s inter- In custody since February 4, 2002, rogation report, Farooqi helped he was convicted of Pearl’s kidnap- arrange the kidnapping. On Sep- ping and sentenced to life in prison tember 26, 2004, he was killed in in July 2002. His case is under ap- a two-hour shootout with Paki- peal. stani authorities. In October 2009, a group calling itself “the Amjad Farooqi group” attacked Pakistani The Dead military headquarters. Saud Memon, the Pakistani businessman on whose land Pearl had Asim Ghafoor was reportedly been held, murdered, and buried, the deputy of Amjad Farooqi, with was reported missing on April 26, whom he helped plan the kidnap- 2007, by the Defense of Human ping, police say. Ghafoor was shot Rights, a Pakistani nonprofit group. and killed in “an encounter” with His brother alleged that Memon had police November 17, 2004, in the been picked up by the FBI while Sadeedabad neighborhood of Ka- on a business trip to South Africa rachi, according to Pakistan media in 2003 and was detained at Guan- reports. tanamo Bay for over two years before being returned to Pakistani Mazharul Hassan was allegedly authorities. A U.S. roster of prison- one of Pearl’s guards. According to ers held at Guantanamo Bay from Pakistani police interrogation re-

ports, he worked for Attaur Rehm- confessed under brutal interroga- an, a logistical strategist in the tion to murdering Pearl. He also Pearl case. In May 2002, Pakistani confessed later at a hearing in police arrested Hassan during a Guantanamo Bay. He is now incar- raid of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants, cerated in Guantanamo Bay, await- according to media reports, and ing trial for his role in the 9/11 he had videos of the Pearl murder, World Trade Center attacks. which Rehman had instructed him to distribute. His arrest led to the Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, also known as arrest of alleged guard Fazal Karim, Ammar al-Baluchi, may have been who led police to Pearl’s remains. present when Pearl was murdered, According to Pakistani media, he according to U.S. and Pakistani of- became a lawyer while in jail, trying ficials. He is a nephew of Al Qaeda to clear the names of alleged mili- mastermind Khalid Sheikh Moham- tants upon his release from prison, med. He married Aafia Siddiqui, and was shot and killed in Karachi a Pakistani who was sentenced in on April 15, 2009, by four unidenti- 2010 in U.S. court for attempting to fied men riding motorcycles. kill two U.S. soldiers in an Afghani- stan police station. Ali was arrest- Asif Ramzi was the emir, or leader, ed and charged for his role in the of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Karachi, September 11, 2001, attacks on the according to Pakistani police, and World Trade Center, among other he met with Omar Sheikh and two terrorist activities. Importantly, the others at the Agha Khan hospital in U.S. Office of the Director of Na- Karachi to finalize the kidnapping tional Intelligence accused him of plot. He was killed December 19, being Richard Reid’s facilitator in 2003, in an explosion while making Karachi, Pakistan. He is now im- a bomb, police said. According to prisoned at Guantanamo. U.S. officials, Ramzi visited Pearl while he was being held. Musaad Aruchi, also known as Abdel Karim Yousef, may have been present when Pearl was mur- The Detained and the Missing dered, according to U.S. and Paki- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the stani officials. He is a nephew of Al Al Qaeda mastermind behind 9/11, Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh

Mohammed, who told FBI agents Karim gives a different account and that his nephew was a facilitator said Choudhary knew the contents. for 9/11. Aruchi was arrested June 12, 2004, in Karachi; his where- Fazal Karim was allegedly one of abouts are unknown, according to the guards during Pearl’s captiv- his family members in Karachi and ity and a witness to the murder. a Human Rights Watch report, “List Picked up by police in connection of Ghost Prisoners Possibly in CIA with a May 8, 2002, bombing of the Custody.” Karachi Sheraton, Karim told Paki- stani police where to find Pearl’s Faisal Bhatti, one of the logistical remains. He was never charged in deputies, is in jail in Sindh province connection with the Pearl case and on charges unrelated to the Pearl is free. case. In 2007, his mother submitted a petition before the High Court of Siraj ul-Haq, one of Pearl’s alleged Sindh in Karachi regarding the ar- guards, was released from jail. A rest, disappearance, and presumed Pakistani police officer tried to detainment of her son. In the peti- make him an informant, but didn’t tion, she stated that her son had have much luck. He was present been missing since June 13, 2002. on the day Pearl was murdered, according to police reports. He is currently free, police sources say. The Free Khalid Choudhary, a courier who Abdul Hayee, another alleged allegedly delivered the murder guard in the kidnapping, was ar- video to an FBI agent in Karachi, is rested in the city of Multan in May believed to be working in that city 2003 for allegedly killing six Shia as a reporter under an alias for On- minority sect Muslims. He was ac- line International News Network. quitted and is living in the Pakistan Choudhary told investigators he province of Punjab, according to a had gotten the video from guard police official. An expert in explo- Fazal Karim. According to a broth- sives and weapons, he has allegedly er, Choudhary told their mother been a player in many terrorist- that he didn’t know what was on related incidents. According to the the video when he delivered it. Pakistani police official, Hayee was

the “most wanted Lashkar-e-Jhang- kidnappers to the safehouse com- vi terrorist” who was involved in pound on a motorcycle. Rehman the planning of Pearl’s kidnapping. was unofficially in Pakistani custody from 2002 until 2010, accord- Sajid Jabbar was allegedly des- ing to his relatives who have tried ignated by Omar Sheikh to meet to challenge his detention as ille- Pearl at the Village Restaurant and gal. Rehman was officially charged take him to the compound where he with weapons possession in 2007. would be held, according to Paki- According to a Pakistani police of- stani police files. He was arrested ficial, Rehman was released from in February 2004 for a parcel bomb jail in July 2010 and is believed to attack and acquitted one month be in Karachi. later. According to a police source, Jabbar is currently free. Mati-ur Rehman was involved in the planning of the kidnapping, Muhammad Muzzamil, another according to a police source. He guard, was allegedly present the was arrested in August 2006, but day Pearl was murdered, witnessed released, according to Pakistani the interview portion of the murder police, who have him on their most video, and then helped bind Pearl’s wanted list for alleged crimes that hands and legs, according to Paki- include running a terrorist train- stani police records. Before the ac- ing camp in Waziristan. According tual murder, he was told to leave. to police, he was also involved in attacks on Pakistani leaders Gen. Mohammad Hashim Qadir was al- Pervez Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz, legedly the militant facilitator who as well as the 2002 bombing at the arranged the meeting between Pearl Sheraton in Karachi. He is allegedly and Sheikh, who at the time was making suicide vests that are being posing as “Bashir.” He was released used against forces of the U.S.-led from jail, according to a Pakistani coalition in Afghanistan. police official, who said he was held for alleged ties to bombings. Mohammad Sohail was an associate of militant leaders Amjad Attaur Rehman allegedly or- Farooqi and Mati-ur Rehman. He ganized the holding cell and led was present at meetings related to

the Pearl kidnapping. He was sen- police officials said. He was pres- tenced to death in 2003 for his role ent at meetings in which the lo- in the 2002 Sheraton Karachi Hotel gistics for Pearl’s kidnapping were bombing that killed 11 French engi- planned. He is free. neers. Upon appeal, Sohail was acquitted in 2009 and he now is free. Shaikh Shahid was an associate of Fazal Karim, one of the guards Malik Tassadaq Hussain, anoth- allegedly holding Pearl. He helped er alleged guard, took the photos Karim deliver the murder video to of Pearl that were placed in the e- Khalid Choudhary. Booked on nar- mail, U.S. officials say. Pakistani cotics charges by authorities in the police told journalists in April 2004 city of Jacobabad, Shahid was ac- that they arrested him, but he was quitted and released, according to never charged in the Pearl case. He Pakistani police. was prosecuted for an attack on a police van. In April 2007, he was ac- U.S. and Pakistani Officials quitted. According to Pakistani police officials, Hussain is free. Tarine “Ty” Fairman and Jay Kanetkar, FBI special agents who Mohammad Akbar Sattar was an worked the Pearl case, have left the English-speaking guard whom Pearl bureau. They both work today as shoved in the bathroom when try- security consultants. ing to escape, according to police reports. Sattar did not witness the John Mulligan, an FBI agent in murder. Sattar’s father reportedly the Newark office, who received filed a petition for his release from the videotape documenting Pearl’s prison in November 2003. Accord- murder, continues to work for the ing to a Pakistani police official, he FBI. is out of jail and running a rice business in Karachi and also involved in Randall Bennett, the regional se- fundraising for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. curity officer at the U.S. Consul- ate in Karachi, served next in the Muhammad Rasheed was a taxi same position in Baghdad. In June driver who transported Arab mem- 2007, he jetted to Washington, D.C., bers of Al Qaeda around Karachi, where he attended a meeting of

FBI, Defense Department, CIA, and her welcome parade, which killed other government officials investi- bystanders. Shah never responded gating the alleged involvement of publicly to the charge and couldn’t Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pearl’s be reached for comment. murder. He returned to Pakistan as regional security officer in Islam- Fayyaz Khan is senior superin- abad, and he is currently the re- tendent of police for the Criminal gional security officer in Bangkok. Investigation Department (CID) in Karachi. In 2002, he arrested Fazal John Bauman, the consul general Karim, the guard who led police to in Karachi during the Pearl murder, Pearl’s remains. He has interviewed retired from the State Department many of the suspects connected to after a distinguished career. the Pearl case. He was seriously injured in a parcel bomb blast sent Mir Zubair Mahmood, the lead to his office in 2002 by the militant investigator in the Pearl case, qui- organization, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. etly visited Cannes, France, in May The CID office was the target of a 2007, for the premiere of the movie suicide bomb attack in November A Mighty Heart. Mahmood slipped 2010. into a car in which the Mumbai- based actor playing him, Irfan Dost Ali Baloch is senior super- Khan, sat. He told a movie official intendent of police for the Special that he faced a risk to his personal Branch unit in Karachi. He was safety with release of the movie. called to investigate Pearl’s disappearance on January 24, 2002 and Ejaz Shah, the retired army briga- was one of the two lead detec- dier to whom Omar Sheikh turned tives on the case, together with Mir himself in, was named by President Zubair Mahmood. He is currently in Musharraf as chief of the Intelli- Karachi working for the police. gence Bureau, a domestic spy wing of the Interior Department. After Jameel Yusuf was one of the last returning from exile in October people to see Pearl alive. In 2002, he 2007, former Pakistani Prime Min- was chief of the Citizen-Police Liai- ister Benazir Bhutto accused Shah son Committee, a group he formed of complicity in a bomb attack on in 1989 after a wave of kidnappings

hit Karachi. He helped with the ef- journalistic community, exposed fort to find Pearl. He is now in pri- and brought to justice.” vate business in Karachi. On May 17, 2010, eight years to the day that Pakistani police dug up the butchered remains of Pearl, The Pearl Family and President Barack Obama signed Pearl Legacy into law the Daniel Pearl Freedom Mariane Pearl, Danny’s widow, of the Press Act, strengthening U.S. lives in Europe with their son, State Department reporting on at- Adam. Mariane is a journalist, au- tacks against the news media. The thor, and activist. Adam will turn Pearl family stood at his side. “All nine years old in 2011. around the world there are enor- Judea and Ruth Pearl, Danny’s mously courageous journalists parents, still live in Encino, Califor- and bloggers who, at great risk to nia, where he and his two sisters themselves, are trying to shine a were raised. The entire family is light on the critical issues that the committed to exploring and under- people of their country face; who standing the root causes of Pearl’s are the frontlines against tyranny murder by promoting, through his and oppression,” Obama said at the example, “cross-cultural under- ceremony. “And obviously the loss standing through journalism, music of Daniel Pearl was one of those and innovative communication,” a moments that captured the world’s goal they actively pursue through imagination because it reminded us the Daniel Pearl Foundation. of how valuable a free press is, and During the Pearl Project, Judea it reminded us that there are those Pearl wrote to an NBC producer who would go to any length in or- who was doing a piece on the Pearl der to silence journalists around Project that the students’ investiga- the world.” tion offers “an effective deterrence Meanwhile, despite the Freedom against future harming of journal- of Information Act lawsuit filed by ists. Terrorists should know that a the Pearl Project, the Obama ad- journalist cannot be harmed with ministration hasn’t opened the gov- impunity and that, no matter how ernment’s files on the Pearl case. n many years it takes, the perpetrators will be hunted down by the

he Pearl Project began interviews, scoured thousands of in September 2007 as a jour- documents, and filed one lawsuit Tnalism class at Georgetown against eight government agencies, University, taught by Asra Nomani, Feinman vs. CIA et. al. Daniel Pearl’s colleague at The Wall Interviews included Pakistani Street Journal, and Barbara Fein- police investigators, FBI agents, man Todd, Georgetown University diplomatic staff, journalists, and Journalism Director. With support others with first-hand knowledge from the Oklahoma City-based Eth- of the case. In addition, the inves- ics and Excellence in Journalism tigation relied on court documents Foundation, Nomani and Feinman from the Pakistan trial of those in- Todd ran a seminar over the course dicted for Pearl’s murder, as well of two semesters in which students as internal Pakistan police records, dug into the facts surrounding the FBI interview reports, and State murder of Pearl by militants in Paki- Department cables. stan during 2002. The project was an experiment Ultimately, the classes involved in investigative journalism 2.0 with 32 student-journalists in the inves- the use of a wiki that allowed stu- tigation during the 2007-2008 aca- dents to collaborate in a virtual demic year. Upon the course’s con- electronic newsroom. A chronolo- clusion, a small group of students gy was built of the events involving continued to work with the co-di- Pearl’s kidnapping, murder, and po- rectors as the Pearl Project moved lice investigation, and analysis was from Georgetown University to the done using link analysis software International Consortium of Inves- from Palantir Technologies and i2. tigative Journalists at the Center Good journalism is by necessity for Public Integrity. After almost a collaborative effort; it takes re- three-and-a-half years of work, the porters, editors, copy editors, fact- project has completed hundreds of checkers, lawyers, and publishers.

Inspired by the Arizona Project, an unnamed, please know your identi- investigative reporting project into ty remains protected but your con- the 1976 murder of Arizona Repub- tribution will never be forgotten. lic reporter Don Bolles, the Pearl Finally, Pearl Project directors Project sought to foster a spirit of salute Daniel Pearl: “We had 32 stu- collaboration and teach students dents. Danny was the 33rd member how to work as a team. The Pearl of our Pearl Project team. Through Project’s main participants were his emails, his last interviews, and student journalists, aided by pro- the details that emerged from his fessional journalists who acted last days, he was our guide, shining as mentors, sounding boards, and a light into a dark abyss of militan- sometimes sources. Though jour- cy, extremism, and terrorism. This nalism attracts individuals who is his last story.” are by nature intensely competi- tive, many professional journalists opened their hearts and their note- The Pearl Project Team books to this project. That is the sort of journalist and man that Dan- Directors ny was. Once, writing about a col- Asra Nomani Barbara Feinman Todd league he admired, Danny wrote: Senior Student Reporters “I wish I could be so dedicated and Kira Zalan Katie Balestra generous.” In fact, he was. But, in the true nature of humility, he never Student Reporters acknowledged it. Pearl Project stu- Haya Al-Noaimi Adil Awadh dents and those who assisted them Mary Cirincione Rachel Claytor in the pursuit of the truth helped to Shilpika Das Erin Delmore keep Danny’s spirit alive. JP Finlay John Gregory In addition to those connected Rochelle S. Hall Hammad Hammad to the journalism profession, many Margo Humphries Karina Hurley people from other walks of life Dmitri Ivashchenko Douglas J. Lane helped as well, some of whom are Katherine Major Caitlin McDevitt named, and others for whom as- Sean Patrick Murphy Afgan Niftiyev sociation with this story could be Jill Phaneuf Bonnie Rollins risky — either professionally or Jessica Rettig Amanda Silverman personally. To those who remain Rebecca Tapscott Clara Zabludowsky

Student Videographer Communications Phil Perry Randy Barrett Steve Carpinelli

Student Photographer Attorney Claire Callagy Marc Miller

Student Editors Sakshi Jain Fatima Bahja Alex Joseph E-Book Design

Contributing Correspondents Reynolds Journalism Institute Saman Sheikh Derek Flood Roger Fidler

Translators Sajida Nomani Zafar Nomani Funding FOIA Attorneys Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Mark S. Zaid Bradley P. Moss Foundation Student Researchers The Fund for Investigative Jasmine El-Gamal Alexandria Shaner Journalism The Pearl Project also wishes to thank Palantir Technologies of Palo Alto, The Center for Public California, which provided generous Integrity in-kind support through its network analysis software and video production. Editors Terry Atlas David E. Kaplan In addition, the Center for Public Integrity Julie Vorman is generously supported by grants from Addesium Foundation, Carnegie Fact Checking Corporation of New York, Omidyar Peter Smith Network, the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Web Team John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Andrew Green Erik Lincoln Foundation, the McCormick Foundation, Cole Goins the Park Foundation, the Popplestone Multimedia Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, Emma Schwartz and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS The Truth Left Behind ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 112 Acknowledgments word series. CPI Chief Operating Officer Ellen McPeake managed Institutional Support the money and offered support and Three entities were our main understanding; Peter Smith, the best supporters: Ethics and Excellence in fact-checker in Washington, saved Journalism Foundation, the Center the Pearl Project from mistakes and for Public Integrity, and Georgetown redundancies; attorney Marc Miller of University. McLeod, Watkinson & Miller made the EEJF financed this project from lawyering process fun; Julie Vorman beginning to end. They cheered us on provided editorial and logistical support and believed in what we were doing. at a time when it was badly needed; Non-profit funding is the new model Regina Russell made the Project feel for supporting investigative reporting at home; and Francesca Craig offered endeavors and every investigative enthusiasm and support. reporter should be lucky enough to Georgetown University have in her corner EEJF’s president, Because of its Jesuit identity, Robert Ross; advisory committee Georgetown University has a tradition member, Marian Cromley; senior of encouraging its community members program officer, Nancy Hodgkinson; to public service and dedicating and Sue Hale. themselves to social justice, as well as to interfaith understanding. In that light, When the Pearl Project needed a it is fitting for this project to have been new home, the Center for Public undertaken by a Muslim and a Jew at Integrity’s International Consortium a Catholic University. The Pearl Project of Investigative Journalists housed appreciates Georgetown taking a the project after the class ended. chance on a different style of pedagogy Executive Director Bill Buzenberg and and allowing an unconventional class ICIJ Director David Kaplan believed in to conduct an investigation. The project this effort and made sure the project appreciated those colleagues and had what was necessary to succeed; administrators who had the vision to Terry Atlas, editor extraordinaire, support it along the way. In particular wrestled the first unwieldy 70,000 thanks go to Penn Szittya, Kathy word manuscript down to the ground Temple, Paul Greco, Robert Manuel, and helped resurrect it as a 30,000- Leona Fisher, Jackie Buchy, Neris

Fleming, Gerard Walker, Donna Even- Professional Advisors Kesef, and Caitlin Tyler-Richards. Jill Abramson John Bussey Steve Levine Paul Steiger The Pearl Family Jane Mayer Nick Fielding The Pearl Project would like thank David Rohde Peter Bergen Ruth Pearl, Judea Pearl, Tamara Pearl, Howard Yoon Abigail Pesta Michelle Pearl, and Mariane Pearl for Jesse Pesta Mark Kukis their support. Ruth Pearl said, “I miss Charles Lewis Pam Norick Danny every minute of my life.” Shuja Nawaz Ed Pound Legal Support Joshua T. White Moeed Yusuf The Pearl Project is grateful to a Hassan Abbas professional thorn in the side of the The Pearl Project would also like to government, attorney Mark S. Zaid, thank The Dart Center for Journalism and his young, hard-working associate, and Trauma and its Executive Director Bradley P. Moss, for fighting the good Bruce Shapiro; The Fund for Investigative fight for us, handling our FOIA lawsuit Journalism; and Investigative Reporters against eight government agencies. and Editors, Inc. and its former executive director Brant Houston. Technical Support Thanks also to Palantir Technologies Finally, because every good Washington for providing the analytical software investigative story is made better by platform for the Pearl Project. a Watergate angle, the project thanks Dr. Donald Kreuzer, whose pro bono Additionally, Elijah White, formerly of contribution came in the form of i2 Inc., spent many after-work hours emergency dental care at his office at helping the Pearl Project sort endless the Watergate, where decades ago amounts of data into attractive and a bungled break-in led to the birth of intelligible network charts. modern day investigative journalism. He Pearl Project Journalist Fellows came to the rescue early one weekend Deborah Scroggins morning, opening his office after hours Anthony “Tony” Capaccio to two strangers with an out of town Ron Shafer “guest” suffering from an agonizing Alicia Shepard dental problem. He asked no questions Estel Dillon and stopped the pain so the Pearl Chris Chambers Project’s work could continue.

The Faculty received two international awards for media excellence while working Asra Nomani, co-director of the Pearl as a senior editor at Radio Sawa, a Project, is a former Wall Street Journal congressionally funded Arabic radio reporter and was a friend of Daniel Pearl. station that broadcasts to the Middle She teaches journalism at Georgetown East. The Association for International University. She has written Standing Broadcasting called Awadh a Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle “heavyweight presenter” who brought for the Soul of Islam. She contributes to Radio Sawa “a level of credibility.” In The Daily Beast. Iraq, he practiced medicine before Barbara Feinman Todd, co-director leaving in 1996. Awadh earned a of the Pearl Project, is the journalism master’s degree in journalism from director in Georgetown University’s Georgetown University in 2010. He is English Department. She is a former fluent in Arabic and English. He covered ghostwriter who has worked on media issues for the Pearl Project. the memoirs of several high-profile Katie Balestra received her politicians and journalists. undergraduate degree in journalism Pearl Project from Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio. She earned a Graduate Students master’s degree in journalism from Adil Awadh, a native of Iraq, is Georgetown in 2010 and was the an award-winning journalist in the recipient of the Tropaia Award in Washington, D.C., area. In 2007, he 2010 for the Master of Professional

Studies program in journalism. She reporter for Roll Call and a blogger for lives in Washington, D.C., and has The Washington Post. Finlay is a staff done freelance writing for publications writer at the Greater Wilmington Business including the Washington Post and Journal in Wilmington, N.C., covering Sojourners magazine. She was a Pearl the banking, finance, and energy Project fellow at the Center for Public sectors in southeastern North Carolina. Integrity. She wrote about human rights He contributes to sports and political issues for the Pearl Project. media websites. He covered Pakistani intelligence for the Pearl Project. Shilpika Das, a native of Mumbai, India, is currently working as a John Gregory earned a bachelor’s communications specialist for a degree in journalism from the University multinational firm in Mumbai. Her of Arizona in 2006 and his master’s in journalism work has been published in journalism from Georgetown University in The Times of India, The Indian Express, 2009. He worked as an online producer The Statesman, the Eastern Times, at the Billings Gazette and Washington and several other publications. While Times before a layoff brought an untimely studying at the University of Maryland, end to that stage in his career. He lives she was awarded a Reuters Fellowship in Tucson and is in his first year at the and worked as a commodities University of Arizona James E. Rogers reporter for the Reuters D.C. bureau. College of Law. He covered Pakistani She also worked as an international police for the Pearl Project. communications associate with the Rochelle S. Hall is a Washington, American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., attorney who has specialized in D.C. She holds a post-graduate securities enforcement and litigation diploma from the Indian Institute of for more than 25 years. In 2007, she Mass Communication in New Delhi retired from law to pursue journalism at and a master’s degree in journalism Georgetown University. After working on from Georgetown University. She did the Pearl Project for nearly a year, she translations and covered the Pakistani decided that investigative journalism is a militancy for the Pearl Project. more grueling career than law. She is a JP Finlay, a Washington, D.C., native, hearing officer for the Financial Industry graduated in 2009 with a master’s degree Regulatory Authority, which regulates in journalism from Georgetown University. the securities industry. She adjudicates After graduating, he worked as a sports disciplinary cases against brokerage

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS The Truth Left Behind ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 116 firms and stockbrokers accused of Douglas J. Lane, a native of Catskill, violating securities laws. Hall received N.Y., grew up in a law enforcement her undergraduate degree in psychology and judicial family. His father served as from Boston College and her law degree a trooper in the New York State Police from Harvard Law School. Hall covered for 22 years, while his mother was the the Pakistani judicial system for the Pearl Catskill village court clerk for more than Project. two decades. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a specialization Karina Hurley, a native of Lima, Peru, in creative writing from Binghamton is a broadcast journalist in Washington, University in 1990. He resides in D.C., currently working as a Spanish Houston, Tex., where he works as a language web producer, freelance writer, marketing project manager and writer. and reporter at various Hispanic media He is currently researching and writing outlets. A former television reporter and a memoir about his aunt, a Korean War radio producer, Hurley specializes in nurse. Lane earned a master’s degree in mass media communications targeting journalism from Georgetown University in the Latino population living in the December 2009. He covered the FBI and United States. She graduated with a Pakistani militants for the Pearl Project. bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Lima in 2001 and Katherine Major completed a master’s a master’s degree in journalism from degree in journalism at Georgetown Georgetown University in 2009. She University in 2010. She earned a covered forensics for the Pearl Project bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona. Major began Sakshi Jain was born and raised in her career at The Washington Post Canada, earning a bachelor of science as a copy aide and editorial assistant degree in psychology with a minor in in the Style section. Later, she was a English from the University of Toronto researcher on former Washington Post in 1998. She completed her graduate editor Ben Bradlee’s book, “A Good Life: studies in journalism and corporate Newspapering and Other Adventures.” communications at Georgetown She has nearly 15 years of experience in University in 2009. She is currently a fundraising and communications for non- proposal manager and communications profit organizations, and is a partner in a consultant and writer in the Washington, writing, editing, and research company D.C., area. She translated and edited for based in Washington, D.C. She covered the Pearl Project.

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS The Truth Left Behind ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 117 the Pakistani judicial system for the Pearl radio station during the Watergate Project. hearings. She was named an AP Radio news editor in Washington, D.C., in Afgan Niftiyev, a native of Azerbaijan, 1979 days before 52 Americans were graduated with a bachelor’s degree in taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in communications from Ege University, Tehran. She has been a producer at Turkey. After working briefly as a NBC News for over 20 years. Rollins news correspondent in Istanbul, completed her master’s degree in he pursued graduate education in journalism at Georgetown University in journalism and received a master’s the summer of 2010. She covered the degree from Georgetown University. State Department for the Pearl Project. After graduating from Georgetown, he worked as a program associate for a Kira Zalan, born in Minsk, Belarus, was congressional study group on Turkey managing editor of the Pearl Project in the U.S. Congress. He is currently a and covered U.S. intelligence. She was graduate student at the Elliott School a Pearl Project fellow at the Center for of International Affairs at George Public Integrity. She holds a graduate Washington University. He covered degree in journalism from Georgetown Pakistani intelligence for the Pearl Project. University, a master’s degree in Russian and post-Soviet studies from the Jill Phaneuf, a native of Fort Myers, Fla., London School of Economics, and a graduated summa cum laude from Florida double bachelor’s degree in politics State University with a bachelor of science and legal studies from the University of degree in international economics and a California, Santa Cruz. She grew up in minor in business. In 2010, she graduated California and is currently a freelance with a master’s degree in journalism from writer based in Washington, D.C. Georgetown University. She is currently the director of Georgetown University’s real estate graduate program, and she is Undergraduate Students a certified yoga instructor. She plans to Haya Al-Noaimi graduated from attend law school. She covered the FBI Georgetown University’s School of for the Pearl Project. Foreign Service campus in Doha, Bonnie Rollins graduated from Indiana Qatar, in 2009. At her home campus, University in the turbulent Vietnam War she majored in international politics. era and was news director of a public Originally from Bahrain, Al-Noaimi

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS The Truth Left Behind ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 118 interned as a paralegal at a law firm in Mary Cirincione, a native of Doha after graduation and now works as Schenectady, N.Y., graduated with a a teaching assistant in a gender and the bachelor’s degree in foreign service law class in the international relations from Georgetown University in May department at Qatar University. At the 2008. She is currently employed as a Pearl Project, she investigated websites consultant at BAE Systems where she that hosted the propaganda murder works on a federal contract supporting video. Customs and Border Protection. While at Georgetown, Cirincione was as Fatima Bahja was an exchange student an analyst for a special intelligence from Georgetown University’s School of research unit at the New York State Foreign Services in Qatar. She spent one Office of Homeland Security where she semester enrolled at Georgetown’s main contributed to a special report assessing campus in Washington, D.C. Fatima the U.S.-Canadian border situation graduated in 2009 with a bachelor’s and the specific security threats posed degree in international politics. She to New York State. She reported on is currently a protocol and invitational “shoebomber” Richard Reid for the Pearl executive at the Qatar Foundation, a Project. non-profit organization in Doha. She edited for the Pearl Project. Rachel Claytor is currently a reporter- producer at news station WCAV Claire Callagy graduated from CBS19 in Charlottesville, Virginia. She Georgetown University in May 2010 graduated with a master’s degree in with a double major in English and journalism from Northwestern University photography. An avid photojournalist, in 2009. Originally from Oxford, Ohio, Claire shot photos during her Claytor played on Georgetown’s varsity undergraduate years in Ghana and field hockey team before graduating Chile, publishing images in Transparent with dual majors in English and cultural Magazine. She has done commercial anthropology in 2008. In Washington, photography in New York and was she interned with the public relations also the Pearl Project photographer. departments of the Washington She is currently pursuing her master’s Redskins and Washington Wizards and degree in childhood education at with the sports department at WTTG Fordham University in New York City FoxDC. She covered the Pakistani and continues to work as a freelance judicial system for the Pearl Project. photographer.

Erin Delmore is a booking producer Georgetown University’s School of for MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Foreign Service in 2008. Hammad was a Matthews.” After graduating from teen columnist at the Contra Costa Times Georgetown in 2008, she joined “The newspaper in the San Francisco Bay NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” as a desk area and also served as a study abroad assistant, then spent nearly two years columnist for the Hoya, the Georgetown at Washingtonian magazine, first as a University student newspaper. He is a researcher, then as an assistant editor. blogger at The Huffington Post. He also She reported and wrote an article, co-founded Inspire Dreams, a non-profit “Leaving It All Behind,” about five group that works with Palestinian refugee young men who went to Pakistan from youth. He is fluent in Arabic and English. northern Virginia to join the militancy. He edited for the Pearl Project. At Georgetown, she contributed news Margo Humphries, a native of and entertainment articles to the student Bozeman, Mont., is a paralegal at the newspaper, The Hoya, and interned law firm of Angel, Coil & Bartlett in with Rolling Stone magazine, NBC’s Bozeman. She is an active volunteer Investigative Unit and 1010WINS news with Special Olympics, coaching skiing radio in her native New York City. She and basketball. During the winter, she has worked as a researcher for ABC teaches children how to ski at Big Sky reporter Claire Shipman, BBC reporter Resort. She graduated from Georgetown Katty Kay, CBS producer Rich Bonin in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in and Washingtonian Editor Garrett government and an English minor. She Graff on their nonfiction books. She plans to enroll in law school in the fall covered Pakistani law enforcement at of 2011. She was the associate editor the Pearl Project. Hammad Hammad, a of a wiki, the Pearlpedia, at the Pearl Palestinian-American immigrant to the Project, and covered the Wall Street United States, is pursuing a graduate Journal. Dmitri Ivashchenko graduated degree in law and diplomacy at the from Georgetown in 2008 with a Fletcher School at Tufts University. He bachelor’s degree in government and is a Rangel Fellow and will be pursuing began working for a local consulting a career in the U.S. Foreign Service company. He now works on education after graduation. He completed a projects in Africa for AED, a nonprofit major in international politics focusing international development organization. on trans-state actors in world affairs He also created an international real with a certificate in Arab studies from

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS The Truth Left Behind ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 120 estate consulting startup in 2010. At the Sean Patrick Murphy graduated Pearl Project, Ivashchenko investigated in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in whether the Pearl murder video could culture and politics from Georgetown’s be studied more carefully through digital School of Foreign Service and a minor forensics. He discovered that that files certificate program in justice and peace had been encrypted. studies. Murphy interned with OneWorld US, a non-profit group, and ABC News. Alex Joseph graduated from He is currently a paralegal at Baker & Georgetown University with a bachelor’s McKenzie in New York and plans to degree in culture and politics from the enroll in law school in the fall 2011. He School of Foreign Service. He interned covered the U.S. Treasury Department at Slate.com and was a staff writer and for the Pearl Project. editor for the arts and entertainment section of The Hoya, Georgetown Phil Perry, the Pearl Project’s University’s school paper. He currently videographer, graduated from lives in San Francisco, Calif. He edited Georgetown University in 2008 with a narratives and reported on Pakistani bachelor’s degree in American studies. police for the Pearl Project. He is currently an editor at Comcast SportsNet New England’s website, Caitlin McDevitt graduated from csnne.com, and he is a high school Georgetown in 2008 with a bachelor’s sports reporter for the Boston Globe. degree in English and a double minor Perry has worked as a news aide for in government and Spanish. While at The Washington Post, interned at NBC’s Georgetown, she wrote for the student headquarters in Boston, and edited newspaper, The Hoya, and interned The Georgetown Voice, the University’s at Washingtonpost.com on the metro weekly newsmagazine. He is also a desk. Following graduation, she worked musician. He videotaped hundreds as an editorial intern at Newsweek in of hours of classroom discussion, the Boston bureau and as an editorial interviews, and aha moments in the assistant for Slate’s business site, The Pearl Project. Big Money. She is currently the deputy style and gossip editor at POLITICO. Jessica Rettig is a politics and policy At the Pearl Project, McDevitt reported reporter at the U.S. News & World on the identities, life stories, and Report. She graduated in 2009 from movements of many of the men involved Georgetown University with a bachelor’s in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. degree in English, a minor in Spanish,

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS The Truth Left Behind ©2011 Barbara Feinman Todd and Asra Nomani 121 and a certificate in Latin American Senegal, West Africa, as the assistant Studies. At the Pearl Project, she to the national coordinator at Tostan, reported on the courier who delivered a community development non-profit the Daniel Pearl murder video to the FBI. organization. She was a senior reporter at the Pearl Project, covering the Amanda Silverman is an analyst at decision by Bush administration officials the political polling and strategy firm, to publically disclose Khalid Sheikh Benenson Strategy Group. She was Mohammed’s confession. previously a reporter-researcher at The New Republic, and before that, an intern Clara Zabludowsky graduated in May at Salon, Rolling Stone, and Capitol 2010 from Georgetown University with a File magazine. She graduated from double major in English and government Georgetown University in 2008 with a and a minor in Chinese. She was born bachelor’s degree in English and history in Mexico City and grew up in Mexico, with a minor in Spanish. She covered Belgium, and Washington, D.C. While the Pearl family for the Pearl Project. at Georgetown, she co-produced Faith Complex, an online talk show on the Rebecca Tapscott graduated from entanglement of religion, politics, and the Georgetown University School art. It aired weekly on the Washington of Foreign Service in 2008 with a Post website. She currently works at bachelor’s degree in international politics Booz Allen Hamilton in its diplomacy and and a certificate in social and political international development team. At the thought. She is currently pursuing Pearl Project, Zabludowsky reported on a master’s degree at Tuft’s Fletcher Omar Sheikh’s family and its connections School of Law and Diplomacy. She to the government of Pakistan. recently spent six months working in

3EPILOGUE SHOW CONTENTS