Pakistani police capture killer suspect

A man sentenced to life in his absence for the murders of 11 French engineers was captured in the Pakistan city of Karachi today when he fell off his motorbike after a gun battle with police.

Mohammed Sohail is also wanted in connection with the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

He was among six people who fired on police from a motorcycle during the confrontation today, said Fayyaz Khan, a Karachi police investigator.

He said the shooting began when a patrol asked the men to stop at a routine checkpoint in the city, the site of frequent attacks by Islamic militants.

The five other suspects fled, but Sohail fell off one of the motorcycles and was captured, Khan said.

No policemen were injured in the shooting and it was not known whether the attackers suffered any casualties.

After his arrest, Sohail confessed to being a member of the outlawed Islamic militant group, Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, Khan said.

In 2003, a court in Karachi sentenced Sohail to death for the car bombing in front of Karachi’s Sheraton Hotel which killed 11 Frenchmen who were helping build a submarine for the Pakistani navy.

Sohail was allegedly a close aide to an al-Qaida’s and is suspected of shooting the grisly video that showed Pearl’s throat being slit with a knife.