Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Daniel Pearl Murder Suspect Freed in Pakistan

A suspect in the execution-style murder of Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan was released by a Pakistani court due to lack of evidence.

Daniel Pearl

Qari Hashim was arrested in 2005, three years after Pearl’s murder. He was accused of introducing Pearl to British-born terrorist Omar Sheikh, who was sentenced to death in 2002 by a Pakistani anti-terror court for being the mastermind behind Pearl’s kidnapping and execution. Three others accused of involvement in Pearl’s abduction were sentenced to life in prison.

Hashim was released by a Pakistani anti-terror court in the southern city of Hyderabad on Friday

Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, was researching a story about Islamist militants when he was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002. He was murdered a month later. His body was found in May 2002.

His final words as he was about to be beheaded — an act that was captured on camera and widely distributed — were “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.