Daniel Pearl

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Daniel Pearl ( October 10, 1963 Princeton , New Jersey – January 29, 2002 Karachi , Pakistan ) was an American- Israeli journalist who worked for the Wall Street Journal . He was kidnapped on January 23, 2002 on the outskirts of the city of Karachi (Pakistan) by a previously unknown "National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" and murdered by beheading about a week later.

Life

career

Daniel Pearl was the son of Jewish immigrants from Israel and held dual citizenship (US and Israel). His father is computer scientist Judea Pearl .

With the Wall Street Journal since 1990 , Pearl worked first in its Atlanta office and from 1993 in the Washington, DC office. In 1996 he moved to the London office and became the Middle East correspondent. After meeting his future wife Mariane in 1998, he moved to Paris ; they married in 1999. His wife is the daughter of a Cuban mother and a Jewish Dutchman who fled to France to escape the National Socialists . As of August 2000, Pearl was chief of the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau and moved to Mumbai with his wife . From there he researched the case of the assassin Richard Reid in Pakistan in January 2002, among other places .

kidnapping and assassination

During a stay in Pakistan, Pearl was kidnapped. His whereabouts were unknown until February 21, 2002, when a video leaked by the assassins showing his assassination was leaked to the public. On July 15, 2002, Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent Omar Said Sheikh was sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for the murder of Daniel Pearl. Omar Said Sheikh confessed to the crime at the beginning of the trial. According to the Times of India , Omar Said Sheikh also transferred $100,000 to Mohammed Atta , one of the assassins of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks , on behalf of Pakistan's ISI chief, General Mahmoud Ahmad , a few weeks before September 11, 2001 .

In 2007, in the notorious Guantanamo prison camp , Chalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to using his "blessed right hand [...] to cut off the head of American Jew Daniel Pearl in Karachi".

A study by Georgetown University in early 2011 concluded that Chalid Sheikh Mohammed was Pearl's killer. By comparing the killer's hands with those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, she concluded from the veins that they must be the same person. According to the investigation, the original kidnappers disagreed on what to do with Pearl; at times they would have considered release. According to the findings, the al-Qaeda leadership intervened. According to several witnesses, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other members led the kidnapping case. Mohammed cut Pearl's throat. Due to a mistake made by his accomplice in operating the camera, no propaganda film could be made. According to the investigation, Mohammed re-enacted the murder and cut off Pearl's head in order to get a recording. According to Georgetown University, 27 people were involved in the kidnapping and death of Pearl; 14 of them were at large in early 2011.

In April 2020, a Pakistani court in Sindh province overturned the death sentence against British-born Omar Said Sheikh. The court ruled that the murder conviction was based on flawed evidence. In January 2021, Sheikh was released.

Musical monument

In 2006, American composer Steve Reich wrote his play Daniel Variations . In the four-movement work, words by Daniel Pearl are used in the second and fourth movements: “My name is Daniel Pearl” and “I sure hope Gabriel likes my music when my day is done”. The first and third sentences use verses from the biblical book of Daniel .

The Daniel Variations were commissioned by Daniel's father, Judea Pearl, and the Daniel Pearl Foundation, along with the Barbican Centre , where the work premiered in 2006.

novel and film adaptation

Mariane Pearl was five months pregnant with her first child at the time of her husband's abduction and gave birth to Adam Pearl on May 27, 2002 in Paris. She moved to New York City and published the book A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Daniel Pearl in 2003 . It appeared in 16 languages, including German. The US actor couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie realized a film based on this book. Jolie played Mariane Pearl, Pitt produced the film and Michael Winterbottom directed it. Actor and screenwriter Dan Futterman ( Capote ) played Daniel Pearl. The film opened in cinemas on June 22, 2007 in the United States and on September 13, 2007 in Germany ( A Courageous Way ).

literature

  • Daniel Pearl, Helene Cooper : At home in the world: collected writings from the Wall Street Journal . Simon and Schuster, New York (NY) 2002, ISBN 0-7432-4415-X , pp. 300 (English).

web links

itemizations

  1. ↑ India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links - The Times of India, 8 Oct 2001 . Retrieved July 24, 2010.
  2. ↑ Basler Zeitung : Sheikh Mohammed admits to the murder of US journalist Pearl ( memento of July 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) March 15, 2007
  3. ↑ Investigation confirms murder by al-Qaeda leader in: Spiegel Online of January 20, 2011
  4. ↑ Hands expose Daniel Pearl's killer in: 20 minutes of January 20, 2011
  5. ↑ orf.at April 2, 2020: Death sentence in Pearl murder case lifted
  6. ↑ dw.com January 28, 2021: Release in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl
  7. ↑ Boosey & Hawkes Composers, Classical Music and Jazz Repertoire. Retrieved March 30, 2018 (English).
  8. ↑ see also www.marianepearl.com and en:Daniel Pearl .
  9. ↑ www.marianepearl.com A Courageous Heart: The Life and Death of Journalist Daniel Pearl . Fischer Scherz 2004, ISBN 3-502-15476-7 .
personal data
SURNAME Pearl, Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist for The Wall Street Journal
BIRTH DATE October 10, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Princeton , NJ
DATE OF DEATH around January 29, 2002
PLACE OF DEATH Karachi , Pakistan