WASHINGTON – The wrong men were convicted of murdering US reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan in 2002, and US officials stood in the way of the real murderers being brought to justice for the grisly crime, a report released Thursday says.
British-Pakistani Omar Sheikh and three other men who were convicted of killing Pearl were not even present when the Wall Street Journal reporter was murdered, says the Pearl Project report, which was led by Pearl’s friend and former colleague, Asra Nomani. Meanwhile, the man fingered in the report as Pearl’s killer, Al-Qaeda strategist and suspected mastermind of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is unlikely ever to be brought to justice for the journalist’s brutal slaying.
The report says Mohammed told US investigators at Guantanamo Bay prison that he slit Pearl’s throat and severed his head, and a technique called vein-matching has shown that his hand matches the “beefy right hand” captured in a video of Pearl’s murder.
