Lawyer Seeks Release Of Pearl Suspect

By: Afzal Nadeem, Associated Press Writer (AP) The attorney representing a Pakistani man allegedly detained in connection with a Wall Street Journal reporter's slaying said Monday he again will try to win his client's release.

Malik Nasir Mehmood said past attempts to win the release of Fazal Karim, who reportedly has not been charged, failed because of legal technicalities. He said he hoped to convince the court that Karim's detention was illegal.

Karim was picked up by plainclothes police May 16 outside the Tauheed mosque in Nazimabad and has not been seen since, the attorney said.

Police have never acknowledged officially that they are holding Karim.

However, police sources said Sunday that Karim and two other militants admitted their involvement in the kidnapping and slaying of reporter Daniel Pearl. Police spokesmen have declined to comment.

Pearl, 38, was kidnapped Jan. 23 in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani Islamic extremists and Richard C. Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami while allegedly trying to ignite explosives in his shoe.

Karim, Naeem Bukhari, and Zubair Chishti told investigators that British-born militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh contacted them on the evening of Jan. 23 and told them where they could grab Pearl, according to two police officers.

Karim and Chishti allegedly beat Pearl and shot him in the leg when he tried to escape during his sixth day in captivity.

On Pearl's ninth day of captivity, three Arabs, whom the militants believed to have been Yemenis, came to the hide-out, the police said. During a videotaped interview, Karim seized Pearl's hands and one of the Arabs slit his throat, the officers said.

At the time Pearl's body was discovered, state-run Pakistan Television said police were led to the shallow grave by three members of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Janghvi, a radical Islamic group with links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.