Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

1 Frontline Pakistan
few minutes before his scheduled meeting. ‘He just told me he was
heading for the restaurant,’ said Mariane. 13
Mariane had worked on various stories with her husband, but could
not join him on his last project because of her advanced pregnancy.
At seven in the evening, Pearl alighted from a taxi in front of the
restaurant, Village, located in a busy downtown commercial district.
He did not realize that he had walked into a trap. His zeal in following
up the story was too strong for him to realize the dangers inherent in
the situation. Instead of taking Pearl to the meeting he expected, a
driver, arranged by Sheikh, drove him to a secluded nursery, where
he was held for about a week before being killed.
In an e-mail message that also carried pictures of Pearl in chains, the
captors put forward a list of demands, including the better treatment
and release of Taliban prisoners held by Americans at Guantanamo,
and the release of US F-16 fighter planes that Pakistan had already paid
for; the planes hadn’t been delivered because of US sanctions related
to Islamabad’s nuclear weapons programme. A second message gave
a 24-hour deadline for their demands to be met or they would kill
Pearl: ‘We are weaker than some countries, but we are not shameless.
We have investigated Daniel Pearl and we came to know that he is
not a CIA official, but a Mossad agent. Therefore, we warn that if the
United States does not meet our demands within 24 hours, then we
will kill Daniel Pearl.’ 14 By this time, Pearl was probably already dead.
The investigators believed he was killed around 30 January, after two
attempts to escape. 15
Sheikh handed himself over to the ISI in Lahore on 5 February
2002, after security agencies detained some of his relatives. Sheikh
told ISI agents that he had lost contact with the people holding Pearl
and suspected that he might have been killed. 16 It was about this time
that President Musharraf, visiting President Bush in Washington, told
reporters that he was ‘reasonably certain’ that Pearl was alive and
would be rescued. He did not give any indication that Sheikh was
already in ISI custody. Instead, Sheikh’s capture was announced a day
after Musharraf left Washington. Pakistani authorities asserted that he
was arrested on 12 February. The missing week raised questions about
the ISI’s motives. 17 It was still a mystery whether the President was
informed by the spy agency of the actual situation when he was with
President Bush. But, according to highly placed sources, ISI agents were
confident they could cut a deal for Pearl’s release by offering to release
Sheikh in return. The plan probably would not have worked, however,