The fate of kidnapped US journalist Daniel Pearl was unclear, on Saturday, as the Wall Street Journal said it had seen reports indicating he had been killed, and police said a ransom demand had been made for his release.
A shadowy group holding Pearl for nine days had threatened to kill him on Friday evening. US President George W Bush said the United States was doing everything it could to save Pearl.
Pearl`s employer, the Wall Street Journal, said it had seen reports indicating the reporter was dead, but held hope they were untrue.
"We have seen the latest reports and we remain hopeful that they are not true," said a statement from the paper. The claim that Pearl had been killed was reported to have been contained in an e-mail, the origin of which could not be verified.
Police in Karachi, where Pearl disappeared when going to meet the leader of a militant Muslim group, said they had not received any e-mail but they had a recording of a telephone demand for $ two million to release the reporter.
The call, made to the US consulate in Karachi, also demanded the release of the former Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef who is in US custody, a senior police official told a news agency on condition of anonymity. There was no one available in the consulate to confirm the details, and a press attache at the US embassy in Islamabad told a news agency he had no details of either the phone call or the e-mail.
Bureau Report