Video shows Pearl being beheaded
KARACHI- A video sent to US authorities shows kidnappers beheading Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, an investigator said Friday.
The three-minute videotape, sent to the US consulate in Karachi, does not show the kidnappers’ faces but focuses on the abducted 38-year-old reporter, who is speaking, the source said.
‘The camera is focused on Pearl’s face. Suddenly his head is chopped off,’ the investigator said, adding that a ‘blunt weapon’ was used.
He said the videotape showed at least two people taking part in the slaying but more could have been involved.
The source said it was unclear from the videotape, received by authorities late Thursday, when the slaying took place.
STATEMENT BEFORE MURDER: A news agency that received the video of Daniel Pearl’s slaying said late Friday that the killers decapitated Pearl after he read a statement saying that he was Jewish and that Muslims were being persecuted in several parts of the world.
‘For the first two minutes of the cassette he is speaking. He appears calm and he is saying that his mother and father both were Jews and he had himself gone to Israel,’ sources said.
‘He is also saying (in English) that Muslims in Palestine and Kashmir and other parts of the world are being oppressed and brutalised.
‘As he is finishing the statement, a hand appears from behind and grabs his head, while another hand appears with a sharp-edged weapon and cuts his throat.’
Later the camera zooms in on Pearl’s head separated from his body.
A person whose identity was obscured then says in Urdu: ‘It warns that if their demands are not accepted, then the Americans and the Jews should be ready to face a fate like Daniel Pearl.’
The home department of Sindh said teams were searching for PearlÂ’s remains.
The video was first delivered to a Pakistani journalist acting as an informer for US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, a Sindh government official and a police officer said Friday.
‘The Pakistani journalist took some time to deliver the video to the US consulate late on Thursday night,’ the Karachi-based official said, requesting anonymity.
He did not identify the journalist or who gave him the video.
Earlier one of the chief investigators of Pearl’s abduction said the Pakistani journalist was working as an informer for US Federal Bureau of Investigation officers.
‘He was an informant for FBI agents,’ the investigator said, requesting anonymity.
‘It took him a while to get in contact with the consulate in Karachi, where the video was eventually delivered by 10:30 pm (1730 GMT) on Thursday night.’
FBI agents have been assisting Pakistani police in their month-long hunt for Pearl and his abductors, according to US and Pakistani officials.
Source: The Nation
Date:2/23/2002
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