Pakistani police dug up a grave yesterday revealing a torso and severed head but said they were still unsure if the body was that of murdered US Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
The Information Minister, Mr Nisar Memon, cast doubt on initial reports that the body was Pearl's, saying he believed this was not the case.
The remains were found in a nursery garden next to a small building on the outskirts of Karachi, where Pearl had apparently been held hostage.
The police chief of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, said the body was so decomposed "it cannot be identified".
"We are relying on DNA tests, which may take a couple of days or weeks," the police Inspector-General, Mr Kamal Shah, said.
A senior police official earlier said nine pieces of the body and hair were found, "strengthening our belief that the body belonged to Daniel Pearl".
But Mr Shah later said 10 pieces of the body were uncovered but no weapon that could have been used for murder was found in the compound.
"I think it is not the body of Daniel Pearl," Mr Memon said on his arrival at Karachi airport from Lahore. Officials said samples had been taken away for DNA testing.
British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other men are on trial for their lives on charges of kidnapping and murdering Pearl. All four have pleaded not guilty.
Pearl disappeared in Karachi on January 23rd while investigating links between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement and suspected shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
Pictures of Pearl holding a newspaper with a gun held to his head were later e-mailed to media organisations.
An investigator who helped dig up the gravesite, near the town of Gaddap, on the Karachi outskirts, said the body was lying on its back and the head had been placed in an upright position, balanced on the base of the neck.
The body had decomposed but it appeared the torso had been whole when buried. The grave was surrounded by date trees and other plants. The nursery was surrounded by desert.
The senior police official said they had found the room where Pearl was believed to have been held hostage inside the nursery.
It was unclear how the grave was found, but sources said there appeared to be a link with the arrests of three men following last week's suicide-bomb attack in Karachi on French naval engineers. Fourteen people, including 11 Frenchmen, were killed in the attack.