Posted on 03/02/2005 10:21:57 AM PST by NormsRevenge
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani police on Wednesday arrested a man wanted in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and already sentenced to death in absentia for a hotel bombing that killed 11 French engineers.
The suspect, Mohammed Sohail, was among six people who fired on police from a motorcycle, sparking a shootout, said Fayyaz Khan, a Karachi police investigator. He said the shooting began when a patrol asked the men to stop at a routine checkpoint in the city, the site of frequent attacks by Islamic militants.
The five other suspects fled, but Sohail fell off one of the motorcycles and was captured, Khan said.
No policemen were injured in the shooting and it was not known whether the attackers suffered any casualties.
After his arrest, Sohail confessed to being a member of the outlawed Islamic militant group, Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, Khan said.
Sohail was allegedly a close aide of Amjad Hussain Farooqi, one of al-Qaida's reputed point men. Khan said Sohail was also believed to have played a role in Pearl's abduction, but he did not give details.
Another police official, requesting anonymity, said Sohail will be interrogated about suspicions that he shot the grisly video that showed Pearl's throat being slit with a knife.
Farooqi was killed in a shootout with security forces last September in the southern city of Nawabshah.
Pearl, who was doing a story on Islamic militancy, was kidnapped Jan. 23, 2002, and later beheaded in Karachi.
In 2003, a court in Karachi sentenced Sohail to death in absentia for involvement in a May 8, 2002, car bombing in front of the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi that killed 11 Frenchmen, Khan said.
The Pakistani government had offered a reward of about $42,000 for information leading to his arrest.
Two other militants, both in custody, have been sentenced to death in the attack that killed the French nationals, who were helping build a submarine for the Pakistani navy.
Shouldn't Eason Jordan be arrested for horning in on Pearl's grieving widow???
The Paki police tried their best to let these six terrorists get away, but then Sohail had to go and fall off the motorcycle. They could hardly not catch him when he was lying there in the middle of the road.
Rest assured, though, they are busily at work on his imminent escape...
And a reminder that this barbaric act took place before we entered Iraq.
Careful, you are going to rile those FReepers who firmly hold to the idea that Pakistan is a steadfast ally in the WoT, because the President tells them so.
bump for turs. update?
It seems that every other month Pakistanis arrest a "Pearl murder suspect." Was poor Danny killed by a thousand people?
Killed by one, but there were several (6, I think) that participated in his kidnapping and on film chanting before his murder. So, let's start up that necktie party for Mohammed Sohail.
The planners of Pearl's murder are likely in the Pakistan government and possibly will never be punished.
Do you think 9/11 only involved 19?
Or that Iraq was run by one guy with no henchmen?
Non sequitur. 9/11 had 3,000 dead. Pearl was one guy.
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