US offers $5m reward for reporter's killers

The American government tonight offered a $5m (€5.8m) reward for the capture of the killers of kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Pearl, 37, was brutally murdered by the Islamic militants who kidnapped him in the Pakistani city of Karachi in January and recorded his death on a gruesome video.

The award was announced by the American State Department, which has sent FBI agents to Pakistan to help local police’s manhunt.

The leading suspect in the case, British citizen Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, is on remand in a prison in Pakistan after confessing to ordering his killing, and could also be extradited to America where he could face thedeath penalty for the kidnapping.

Saeed, 27, from Wanstead in east London, is also wanted in the US for themurder of a kidnapped American backpacker in Kashmir.

Police in Pakistan are searching for three Arabs believed to have played a part in the kidnap plot, as well as the main suspect who is still to be caught, Amjad Faruqi.

Four other Pakistanis who had close links to the deposed Taliban regime in Afghanistan are also being hunted in a massive operation.

Pearl’s wife Mariane, a French journalist who is expecting their son intwo months time, has spoken of her loss and called her husband ‘‘a hero’’.

She also said she believed the kidnappers were part of a global terrorism problem and said: ‘‘This is a vast international network of people.

‘‘If you consider it as being just a group in Pakistan this is completely wrong.’’