PAKISTAN: Pakistani officials said yesterday they would pursue murder charges against the confessed mastermind of the abduction of the US journalist, Daniel Pearl, as investigators pledged to keep looking for accomplices in the reporter's murder.
A British-born Islamic militant, Sheikh Omar, who has said he was behind the Wall Street Journal correspondent's kidnapping on January 23rd, is expected to be ordered into judicial custody when he appears again in an anti-terrorism court today.
The 29-year-old former student at the London School of Economics will then have the chance to apply for bail, after which formal charges will be brought against him and a trial can begin.
He could face the death penalty if found guilty of abuction or murder.
Omar, who spent nearly six years in an Indian jail until being released in a deal with airplane hijackers, told the anti-terrorism court on February 14th that he arranged Mr Pearl's kidnapping and that the journalist was dead.
Two suspects believed to have sent e-mails of Mr Pearl in captivity will also appear in the court. A third e-mailer has already been sent to jail, but must appear in court with the other suspects as a formality.
The most wanted man is Mr Amjad Hussain Farooqi, an Islamic militant investigators believe drove Pearl from a Karachi hotel on his way to captivity and eventual death. Police are also looking for four accomplices in the killing described by the journalist who delivered the videotape and an Arab national who is thought to have helped Mr Farooqi snatch Mr Pearl.
Israelis yesterday claimed Mr Pearl as one of their own, amid revelations that his parents were Israelis and that he said on videotape that he was a Jew just before he was killed.
Israeli newspapers published interviews with Pearl's grandmother in Tel Aviv and his father in the US, alongside commentary focusing on the reporter's Israeli connection and Jewish lineage. His mother and father left Israel 40 years ago and settled in the US.
His father, Yehuda, was quoted by Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper as saying his 38-year-old son - who had visited the Jewish state but never lived there - considered himself an American, not an Israeli.
However, Israeli officials dismissed the claims that Pearl was a Mossad spy as "complete rubbish". The Wall Street Journal also denied the allegations.
Meanwhile, the Afghan interim leader, Mr Hamid Karzai, was given a red-carpet welcome on his first official visit to Iran yesterday, and held talks with President Mohammad Khatami.
Mr Karzai, who flew in with 13 members of his government for the three-day visit, was given a reception worthy of a head of state at the former imperial palace of Saad-Abad in residential northern Tehran. Mr Karzai is due to meet Iran's spiritual guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, today.
In Washington, the senior US general said it was likely that Osama bin Laden had survived the bombing assaults on Afghanistan, but maintained that he would eventually be captured. "It's possible that he is no longer alive, but I think the odds are he probably is alive," the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Richard Myers, said. - (AFP, Reuters)