KARACHI/WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — A Pakistani judge ordered Monday that three key suspects in the kidnapping of murdered U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl be detained at least another two weeks, and U.S. officials said they might bring their own charges in the case.
The three suspects, including alleged ringleader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Islamic radical, complained they were being pressured to admit to a crime that has shocked the world by its barbarity.
In a brief appearance before a Karachi anti-terrorism court, the judge extended the trio’s detention for 14 days after police said they needed more time to find Pearl’s body and the weapon used to cut the Wall Street Journal reporter’s throat on camera.
In Washington, law enforcement officials said the U.S. Justice Department was strongly considering bringing criminal charges in Pearl’s kidnapping and murder. They said a grand jury might be convened in Washington or in Alexandria, Va.
Separately, President Bush, praising Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation in the case, said Washington wanted to pursue Sheikh Omar. “We’re always interested in dealing with people who have harmed American citizens,” Bush told reporters at the White House.
U.S. officials said Washington considered a 1931 extradition treaty signed with Britain — then the colonial ruler of the territory on which Pakistan was established in 1947 — was still in effect.
Sheikh Omar, 28, was arrested Feb. 12, while Sheikh Abil and Salman Saquib, both accused of sending ransom e-mails, were taken into custody four days earlier.
“The (14-day) remand has been granted on the basis that the investigation agency wants to recover the dead body and wants to recover the weapon,” Raja Qureshi, Advocate General of Karachi’s Sindh government, told reporters after a hearing closed to the press and public.
Suspects complain of pressure
Khawaja Naveed, defense lawyer for Adil and Saquib — Sheikh Omar does not have a lawyer — said all three complained to the judge that while they were not maltreated, they had been pressured into signing confessions.
“The honorable court has directed the police not to use coercive measures and not to pressurize the suspects,” Naveed told reporters.
Sheikh Omar refused to make a confessional statement at the hearing, raising questions about a confession police said he made to them shortly after his arrest in which he claimed to be the kidnapping ringleader.
Police said Sheikh Omar confessed during interrogation to planning the kidnap to protest a crackdown on Islamic militant groups opposed to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
They added he also portrayed the kidnapping as a protest against U.S. treatment of Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners.
Pearl disappeared Jan. 23 in Karachi while working on a story about Islamic radicals in Pakistan and their possible links with Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on America.
Sheikh Omar was in police custody when U.S. and Pakistani authorities received a videotape last Thursday showing Pearl’s killing. Sheikh Omar had been due for release Tuesday before the extension of his detention.
A nationwide manhunt extending from the teeming streets of Karachi to the border with Afghanistan was underway for seven people suspected of carrying out the murder itself. They included an Arab man with possible links to bin Laden.
A group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty claimed responsibility for Pearl’s kidnapping and accused him of being a spy — first for the CIA, then for Israel.
The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, said Monday the United States had since late November been seeking the extradition of Sheikh Omar for an earlier kidnapping.
“A nasty character”
“Sheikh Omar is a nasty character. He’s been involved in kidnappings and crimes against American citizens for many years. He’s someone that we’ve had our eye on for many years, and . . . this has been an ongoing effort,” she told CBS television.
Chamberlin said she was likely to bring up the topic at a Tuesday meeting with Musharraf.
A senior White House official said the 1931 extradition treaty had been used as recently as 2001 when, at Pakistan’s request, the United States extradited Mansur-ul-Haq, a former Pakistani naval chief wanted on corruption charges. He had been living in Austin, Texas, for four years.
Pakistan handed over Ramzi Yousef, the convicted ringleader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Mir Amal Kasi, convicted of a shooting spree outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., without formal extradition proceedings, the official said.
Sheikh Omar, who studied at Britain’s London School of Economics, came to prominence in 1994 when Indian police arrested him and accused him of involvement in the kidnapping of four tourists — three Britons and an American — in India.
The tourists were freed after 10 days in captivity in a shootout in which a kidnapper and two policemen were killed.
Sheikh Omar, who was arrested for a separate incident, was freed in exchange for passengers of a plane hijacked to the Afghan city of Kandahar just before his case was to be heard.
