KARACHI, 8 March 2005 — A Pakistani court yesterday granted police another four days to question a militant over the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
Mohammad Sohail, who was sentenced to death in absentia two years ago for his part in a bomb blast which killed 11 French engineers, was captured Wednesday in Karachi after falling off a motorbike during a shootout with police.
A magistrate remanded Sohail, who is said to be a senior member of the Harkat Jihad-e-Islami militant group, in police custody for another four days.
“We got his further remand as the investigation has not yet been completed,” police officer Mohammad Fayyaz said.
Sohail is refusing to cooperate with interrogators. Sohail is also suspected of involvement in two failed assassination attempts in 2003 against Musharraf.
Police want to question Sohail about the killing of Pearl in January 2002 and the assassination attempts on Musharraf, but he has refused to answer questions, said Mohammed Younas, a Karachi police investigator.
“He is a hardened suspect. He did not cooperate during interrogation,” he said.
“Sohail is tough and is not speaking much about his role in other cases like the murder of Daniel Pearl.” The officer said police had not yet arrested five of Sohail’s accomplices said to have escaped during the shootout. “They are on the run,” he said.
Police brought Sohail to the courtroom in the back of a van with a hood over his head. The hood was removed for the hearing but he did not speak while in court.
Pearl disappeared in Karachi in January 2002 while writing about militancy in Pakistan. A video showing his decapitation was delivered to the US Consulate in the city nearly a month later. Investigators have said Sohail could be the cameraman who made the video of Pearl’s slaying.
Police said last week they were also investigating whether Sohail was involved in a failed December 2003 bomb attack targeting Musharraf’s motorcade in the northern city of Rawalpindi.
Sohail was one of three militants sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court for the June 2002 car bombing which killed the French naval engineers and three Pakistanis outside Karachi’s Sheraton Hotel.
A bomber rammed a Toyota Corolla packed with explosives into a bus as it collected the Frenchmen from their hotel. They were helping Pakistan build its first locally-made submarine. Judge Mehboob Ali Dhayo scheduled the next hearing for Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether Sohail would be charged with another crime or be executed in line with his 2003 sentence.
