Pearl murder: Appeal after 9/11 suspect confesses

[133724]

KARACHI (AFP) - Lawyers for a British-born militant sentenced to hang for the murder of Daniel Pearl say they will try to use a confession by Al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to seek his release.

Mohammed, the Al-Qaeda number three who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to US custody a week later, admitted during a closed-door US military hearing in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to having beheaded the journalist, according to an edited transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

<snip>

After months of investigations, police blamed the kidnapping and subsequent beheading in the southern city of Karachi on a group of Islamic militants headed by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also known as Sheikh Omar.

Omar was arrested with three other colleagues and convicted of Pearl's murder in June 2002 by an anti-terrorism court. Seven other co-accused were punished in absentia and two of them were later killed in encounters with the police.

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070319023233.qhtie1e7.html

unintended consequences.......

[Bolo Boffin]

1. Well, unintended by the CIA.

KSM knows what he's doing.

[izzie]

2. Since we are the 'greatest 'I am sure our man is the one that did it.

We can't let these small countries get ahead of us in getting these people. Any how this plays good while the WH is coming un-glued. Bush can say he got the evil one.

[CJCRANE]

3. Isn't there an allegation out there

that Omar Saeed Sheikh wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta on the orders of the ISI chief and that Pearl was killed by him because he was getting too close to the 9/11 money trail..?

And that Omar Saeed Sheikh was a British double-agent..?

If so, this could simply be the BFEE handing their man a "get out of jail free" card.

[HamdenRice]

4. Most important angle of the story has been missed!

That's exactly it. KSM's false confession may very well lead to the acquittal of Sheikh. In the mainstream press he has been indentified as the killer of Daniel Pearl.

But he is also the nexus of the Pakistan ISI - Mohammed Atta - US intelligence - British intelligence connections.

The Pakistant intelligence (ISI) chief (Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad) who ordered Sheikh to send $100,000 to Atta, flew to Washington DC in the days before 9/11 for intense discussions with the CIA, State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council staff, and as the planes were crashing into the WTC, he was having breakfast with the chair of the House Intelligence Committee (and soon to be CIA Chief), Porter Goss (who also happened to represent a Congressional District in Florida adjascent to where Atta was based in Florida), as well as Senate Intelligence Committee chair Bob Graham.

Goss admitted in mainstream press reports that his breakfast meeting on the morning of 9/11 (with the guy who allegedly ordered the sending of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta) concerned terrorism emanating from Afghanistant.

So, yes, this CIA coerced confession may be a get out of jail card for the operative who funded the hijackers, at the bequest of Pakistan.