Wall Street reporter 'dead'
Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was taken hostage by Islamic extremists in Pakistan, is now believed to be dead, the newspaper said in New York tonight.
‘‘We now believe, based on reports from the US State Department and police officials of the Pakistani province of Sind, that Danny Pearl was killed by his captors. We are heartbroken at his death,’’ Peter Kann, publisher of the Journal, said in a statement.
‘‘Danny was an outstanding colleague, a great reporter, and a dear friend of many at the Journal,’’ Kann said. ‘‘His murder is an act of barbarism that makes a mockery of everything Danny’s kidnappers claimed to believe in. They claimed to be Pakistani nationalists, but their actions must surely bring shame to all true Pakistani patriots.’’
Pearl was abducted in the port city of Karachi on Jan. 23 after arranging to interview the leader of a radical Muslim faction with purported ties to the al Qaida terrorist network and British terror suspect Richard C Reid, arrested in December on a Paris-Miami flight he allegedly boarded with explosives in his shoes.
