Pakistani Man Arrested In Daniel Pearl’s Death

The wheels of justice are turning slowly, but inexorably in the case of beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — with a significant turn today amid news that the man believed to have set Pearl up for his kidnapping has been captured.

Pearl was kidnapped while doing his job as a reporter, pursuing a story, thinking he was going to talk to an Islamic militant bigwig. Clearly he never dreamed that as a reporter he would not only be held captive (see photo) but have his head sawed off as a video camera recorded most of his death. Reuters reports a development that’s good news for anti-terrorism forces and journalists everywhere:

Pakistani security forces have arrested an Islamic militant thought to have set up a meeting between murdered U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl and his kidnappers, police and intelligence officials said on Thursday.

Mohammad Hashim Qadir, alias Arif, was arrested three or four days ago in the city of Gujranwala in the central province of Punjab, the city’s police chief Zafar Abbas told Reuters.

“He has gone through court procedures and right now he is in jail,” he said.

Intelligence officials said Qadir was one of seven Islamic militants still being sought in connection with Pearl’s murder and is thought to have arranged the meeting between the Wall Street Journal reporter and his kidnappers.

So you can see the size of the conspiracy to snatch, humiliate and brutally murder Pearl because he was a western journalist, and American and — not uncoincidentally — a J-e-w:

Pearl, 38, was kidnapped in January 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militants. He was later found beheaded.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Islamic militant, was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding the crime while three associates were given life in prison.

Their appeals against the convictions are still pending.

Intelligence officials said Qadir was found on a bus about to depart for Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, after being traced via the satellite telephone he was carrying.

A police investigator in Karachi said Qadir had acted as a coordinator between Omar Sheikh and Amjad Hussain Farooqi, one of the main suspects in Pearl’s murder described by authorities as a key link between local militants and al Qaeda.

Farooqi was shot and killed by security forces in the southern city of Nawabshah in September last year

Pearl disppeared right after leaving his hotel.

Meanwhile, an Indian film company has acquired the rights to do a documentary movie about the Daniel Pearl case. Sify reports:

The principal shooting of the film is already complete, it is now under post-production in London, to be finished in time for the Toronto Film Festival in September 2005. This tie-up will ensure royalty income to the company in perpetuity from International theatrical release, as well as TV and DVD sales worldwide.

The Indo-Asian News Service further adds:

The company has also been awarded the international distribution rights of the document on the American journalist who was abducted and killed in Pakistan, said a statement issued to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Moving Picture said the principal shooting of the film, to be sold to London-based Distant Horizon and First Take, was already complete and it was now under post production in London.

This tie-up will ensure royalty income to Moving Picture in perpetuity from international theatrical release as well as TV and DVD sales worldwide.

One of the quirkier and more tragic aspects of the Daniel Pearl case centers on an aspect of the barbarity displayed by his captors: they didn’t get the horrorifict videotaping of the bound Pearl’s decapitation right — it was bungled at one point — and it clearly bugged them.

So the next time(s) they got it “right.” Pearl’s death was actually a harbinger of various high-profile beheadings 1in 2004, notably the tragic and despicable death-by-Islamic-gang execution of Nick Berg. We wrote about it on our old Blogspot blog HERE. THAT TIME they got it “right” and the Islamofascists then cloned this kind of murder which was always accompanied by postings on the Internet — that effectively made these terrorists snuff film producers.

Yet, what happened?

The use of the numerous, highly publicized beheadings with lots of publicity coupled with debut of the video “production” on the Internet seemingly vanished.

Why?

Was it bad feedback? Did they find that murdering innocents by bombs, bullets through the head or nonvideotaped beheadings were more cost effective in terms of garnering support?

MORE WEB RESOURCES:
Daniel Pearl Foundation
Wikipedia Daniel Pearl
South Asian Journalists Foundation page on Daniel Pearl
Nick Berg Memorial Website
Wikipedia Nick Berg