reply by
Spirit of Danny Pearl
4/24/2002 (14:13) |
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KARACHI, Pakistan, April 24 — A Pakistani reporter described today the extensive preparations for a meeting that had been made by the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl before his abduction and murder.
Asif Faruqi, the only witness today in the trial of four men charged with the kidnapping and killing of Mr. Pearl, said that in a last-minute telephone call Mr. Pearl had voiced concern for his safety in meeting an Islamic fundamentalist leader.
The trial has been closed to the media and accounts of the proceedings come from the prosecutor, Raja Qureshi, and from defense lawyers.
Mr. Faruqi, who was working as an assistant to Mr. Pearl, said he told him that he should be safe because the man he was hoping to meet, Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, was a public figure, said Khawaja Naveed, one of the defense lawyers.
Mr. Gilani was detained by the police after Mr. Pearl disappeared but was released when they found nothing to connect him with the kidnapping.
Mr. Pearl, 38, the South Asia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, disappeared on Jan. 23 while researching an article on terrorism. News agencies received two e-mail ransom messages that included photographs of the reporter in custody. On Feb. 21, American diplomats received a videotape depicting the killing of Mr. Pearl.
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For weeks, Mr. Faruqi said, Mr. Pearl had sought the meeting in an effort to trace a possible Pakistani connection to Richard Reid, who had been arrested in December on an airliner with explosives in his shoe.
As early as Jan. 5, he said, Mr. Pearl had asked him if it would be possible to meet with Mr. Gilani. Mr. Faruqi said an intermediary put him in touch with a man calling himself Chaudry Bashir, who claimed to be close to Mr. Gilani.
Mr. Faruqi said he later identified this man as Omar Sheikh, 28, the chief defendant in the case. Prosecutors say Mr. Sheikh also used the name Chaudry Bashir when he communicated with Mr. Pearl by e-mail.
On Jan. 11, Mr. Faruqi testified, he and Mr. Pearl met for three hours with Mr. Sheikh in a hotel room in the city of Rawalpindi. 'He promised Daniel Pearl he would get in touch with Gilani,' Mr. Faruqi told the court.
One week later, he said, Mr. Pearl called to tell him he was flying to Karachi, where a meeting had been arranged.
On the morning of Jan. 23, Mr. Faruqi said, he received a telephone call from Mr. Pearl, who said, 'Give me a quick reply. Is it safe to meet with Gilani?' It was on that evening that Mr. Pearl disappeared.
In cross examination, Mr. Naveed said, one of the defense lawyers, Rai Bashir, accused both Mr. Pearl and Mr. Faruqi of being spies for both Israel and the United States.
'You are an undercover agent and Pearl was also an agent of the Jews,' Mr. Naveed quoted the lawyer as saying. 'Whatever you are saying is said under police pressure.' He said Mr. Faruqi dismissed the allegation as untrue.
Mr. Naveed said most of the remaining witnesses in the case are expected to provide only formal testimony about dates and places.
One prospective witness is a magistrate who is to read to the court the statements of two defendants — Fahad Naseem and Sheikh Muhammad Adeel — who have apparently linked Mr. Sheikh to the e-mail messages.
The fourth defendant, Salman Saqib, has been the most vocal throughout the case, shouting at one point that he had been tortured by the police and then on Tuesday accusing a witness of being a stooge for Jewish interests.
Today he made no outbursts, Mr. Naveed said. But Mr. Qureshi, the prosecutor, complained to the judge that Mr. Saqib had made a remark threatening his life.
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