Pearl's remains could be home soon - official

The remains of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl could soon be returned to his family after a Pakistani DNA test confirmed that a decapitated body found in the city of Karachi was his, a government official said today.

The remains have been kept in Karachi since they were discovered on May 27 in a shallow grave, said Mukhtar Ahmad, head of Sindh Province’s Home Department. Karachi is in Sindh.

He said doctors at the National Centre of Excellence and Molecular Biology in the city of Lahore used DNA testing to identify the remains. The results confirmed DNA tests done in the US, which also identified the body as Pearl’s, Ahmad said.

On Thursday, US officials handed Pakistan the US test results.

‘‘We have received both the reports from Lahore and America. Since Pearl’s body has been identified, we will hand over the remains to the persons concerned to take the same to his native home,’’ Ahmad said.

Pearl disappeared on January 23 in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani extremists and Richard C Reid, arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes.

On July 15, a court sentenced to death British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, 28, in the kidnap-murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter. Three others got life sentences.

All four defendants have appealed.