WASHINGTON — A new report concludes that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attack, killed abducted Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan nine years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The paper reported that Asra Q. Nomani, a former Journal reporter who was friends with Pearl, led an investigation into the murder with Georgetown University faculty and students.
The “Pearl Report” found that U.S. officials, using vascular technology or vein matching, concluded that the hands in the high-profile video killing belonged to Mohammed, the Journal reported.
Mohammed had confessed to the killing during a military hearing in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2007, where he is currently being held and awaiting trial in the 9/11 attack. But at the time it wasn’t clear if it was self promotion or the truth.
Pearl was abducted Jan. 23, 2002. He was duped into thinking he was going to an interview someone as part of his investigation into ties between a radical Pakistani cleric and shoe bomber Richard Reid.
Mohammed told U.S. investigators that he was not originally involved in the abduction, but was later pulled in by another senior al Qaeda operative, the Journal reported.
