Washington, Nov 13: A Karachi-based businessman
suspected of involvement in the slaying of American journalist
Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, soon after being
interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, a news report
has said.
The suspect, Saud Memon, was interrogated both for his
involvement in Pearl's murder and his role as a financier and
facilitator for al Qaeda, including the pursuit of weapons of
mass destruction, the Wall Street Journal said quoting an
unnamed senior US law-enforcement official.
"The revelation" suggests that Memon's "interrogation
may have played a role in his death," the newspaper said
quoting lawyers and human-rights advocates, who have accused
the US administration of colluding with Pakistan in illegally
arresting and detaining scores of suspected terrorists since
the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
"Legal-aid and human-rights groups have accused
Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services
Intelligence bureau, of torturing Memon during his detention
in Pakistan, based on interviews with fellow prisoners," the
journal said.
They believed that Memon was held at a secret CIA
detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, before being turned
over to the ISI early last year.
Memon was "in a lot of the rooms where important
things were being discussed. He knew senior al Qaeda people,
and was moving equipment and supplies," said the US official,
who had access to intelligence files on the businessman.
Badly injured Memon was dumped on April 28 in front of
his Karachi home, according to his family and human-rights
groups. Memon, a prosperous textiles merchant, died on May 18
at a hospital in Karachi from complications related to
meningitis and tuberculosis.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, November 13, 2007, 00:00