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CNN Live At Daybreak

U.S. Officials, "Journal" Say Pearl Is Not A Spy

Aired January 29, 2002 - 05:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Okay, we have more details now on that kidnapped American reporter.

CNN State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel reports on efforts to find Daniel Pearl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The saga began last Wednesday in the bustling streets of Karachi, Pakistan. That's where Daniel Pearl, a 38-year-old American journalist with the "Wall Street Journal," was digging into the case of Richard Reid, the man best known as the alleged shoe bomber.

RICHARD MURPHY, COMMITTEE TO PROJECT JOURNALISTS: According to his wife, he had gotten a tip that some sources with one of the Islamist militant groups fighting in Kashmir was willing to speak to him.

KOPPEL: Pakistani police say the last time anyone heard from Pearl, he was on his way to interview a member of a well known militant Islamic group. He was alone, without a translator. By Friday, Pakistani authorities had launched an interagency investigation and a team of FBI agents joined the hunt.

BRIG. MUKHTAR AHMED, PAKISTANI PROVINCIAL SECRETARY: We're trying to establish contacts with as many people as we come to know of it.

KOPPEL: Suddenly, on Sunday a previously unknown group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty sends an email addressed to a number of Pakistani and U.S. newspapers. The group claimed Pearl was an American CIA officer and provided these photos, including one with a revolver pointed at his head, as proof they had Pearl in custody. Pearl was being held in very "inhumane circumstances," the email said, "similar to the way that Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the United States."

Instead of ransom, the group made a series of political demands -- Pakistani prisoners in Guantanamo, Cuba must be returned to Pakistan; Pakistanis illegally detained by the FBI in the U.S. must be given access to lawyers and family members; and that the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, now in U.S. custody, be released. In an unusual move, the CIA publicly denied that Pearl has or had ever worked for the agency. By Monday, the State Department issues a travel warning to Pakistan for all U.S. citizens and Secretary Powell calls Pakistan's president for an update.

RICHARD ARMITAGE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, we have been very closely involved with the authorities in Pakistan. Their intelligence authorities, their law enforcement people and their army are looking everywhere, trying to resolve the fate of this missing reporter.

KOPPEL (on camera): And if nothing else, that is what Pearl's employer, the "Wall Street Journal," hopes to convey to whomever is holding Pearl captive, that he's not a spy, just a journalist who was trying to do his job.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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