Newspaper makes appeal to kidnappers

The Wall Street Journal appealed Saturday to the kidnappers of reporter Daniel Pearl to show evidence that he is still alive after an all-night search of Karachi graveyards turned up nothing.

Pearl's wife and an American Muslim group issued separate appeals for his release, and e-mails purportedly sent Saturday by the kidnappers gave conflicting accounts of his fate.

An e-mail received Friday by U.S. news organizations claimed Pearl, 38, had been killed and his body dumped in an unspecified cemetery in this city of 12 million people. He was abducted in Karachi on Jan. 23 while working on a story about a Muslim extremist group.

After an exhaustive search, Pakistani officials and the Journal concluded that the e-mail was a hoax and expressed hope that the newspaper's South Asian bureau chief was alive.

The last e-mail that included pictures of Pearl was received Wednesday by Pakistani and American news organizations. The Journal urged the kidnappers to free Pearl or at least resume contact.

"We urge them to release Danny," Managing Editor Paul Steiger said in New York. "If that is not possible, we call on them to demonstrate that Danny remains alive. They can do this by providing us with a photo of Danny holding today's newspaper."

Police said they believed a ransom demand, telephoned to U.S. diplomats Friday, also was a hoax. The caller demanded a $2 million ransom and the release of a former Taliban diplomat.

In Islamabad, an Interior Ministry official speaking on condition of anonymity said one person had been detained for interrogation on suspicion of calling in the ransom demand.

Mukhtar Ahmad Sheikh, governor of Sindh province, which includes Karachi, expressed hope that Pearl would be found "as we believe the man is still alive."

Pregnant wife

Pearl's French wife, Marianne, is six months pregnant with their first child. In a letter published Saturday in the Urdu language newspaper Jang, she asked the kidnappers to free her husband "as people inspired by Islam's ethics."

"I ask them to be people who have the courage to actually take the first step to end this cycle of suffering," she said. "Let real justice win. Maybe because you have suffered so much, because you are crying so much for justice, maybe you are the first ones to implement justice."

In Washington, the Council on American-Islamic Relations joined in the appeals for Pearl's release.

"We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Daniel Pearl and an end to the targeting of journalists in any area of the world," board chairman Omar Ahmad said in a statement. "Such actions by those claiming to act on behalf of Muslims are in sharp contradiction to Islamic teachings and violate the internationally-accepted neutral status of journalists during times of conflict."

At the State Department, spokesman Frederick Jones said U.S. diplomats were working with Pakistan "to obtain Mr. Pearl's immediate and unconditional release" because his detention "is no help to the cause of those who hold him."