Suspect in journalist murder case arrested
Police and intelligence agents today arrested a suspected militant who was wanted for a role in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, officials said.
The man, identified as Hashim Qadeer, was captured from a bus at a terminal in the eastern Pakistan city of Gujranwala, a police and an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.
American journalist Pearl was kidnapped and later beheaded in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi while he was researching a story on Islamic militancy in 2002.
Months later, a court in Karachi convicted four Islamic militants in Pearl’s killing, including British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was sentenced to death. The three others were given life imprisonment.
The Karachi-based intelligence official said Qadeer is believed to have arranged a meeting between Sheikh and Pearl at a hotel in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad.
Both the police and the intelligence officials requested anonymity because they are not authorised to make media statements.
Two other militants wanted in Pearl’s case were killed in shoot-outs with security forces last year.
Five others remained at large. Qadeer was one of the fugitives, the police official said.
In 2003, authorities listed Qadeer’s name among the country’s 40 most wanted men.
