I think this has the ring of truth, though I'm not ready to say that Gilani is innocent. I still think he was involved.
I just think the timing of this is a bit suspect. Why didn't it come out when the Pearl murder was in the news? At the very least, it should have come out when the trial was in the news. It just seems odd that it pretty much stayed under the radar until the dims decided to undermine the attack on Iraq.
The only plausible reason I can think of for keeping it buried until now would be the inference that Pearl was perhaps working with the CIA. The problem is that I don't think that would have made any real difference over there. He was already thoroughly hated just for being Jewish.