Islamabad: The top al-Qaeda operative accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks either killed or took part in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has alleged for the first time.
Musharraf's claim, made in his memoirs released this week, could now be used to try clear one of Pearl's four convicted killers, who is appealing his death sentence, the prisoner's lawyer said on Thursday.
Musharraf accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of taking part in Pearl's killing in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, following the journalist's kidnapping on January 23, 2002. Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and is in US custody in Guantanamo Bay.
“The man who may have actually killed Pearl or at least participated in his butchery, we eventually discovered, was none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda's number three,'' Musharraf wrote in In The Line of Fire released on Monday.
Mohammed has never been officially linked to Pearl's murder during police investigations or the trial that resulted in four Islamic militants being convicted for the killing. One of the men was sentenced to death, and the other three to life in prison.
But some US officials and Pearl's newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, suggested that Mohammed had killed the journalist. Pakistan denied the claims at the time.
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