Top al Qaeda leader personally beheaded Daniel Pearl

New report confirms Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's role in murdering Daniel Pearl.

WASHINGTON:

A recently completed report into the killing of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter, Daniel Pearl has confrimed the accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammad as the murderer.

Despite Khalid's admission to killing Pearl in 2007, there were doubts regarding his involvement. Khalid, who describes himself as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre is being held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but the United States had not charged him with the crime.

A video of the slaying was distributed online nearly a month after Pearl was abducted, but the face of the killer who slit his throat was not visible.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Khalid said, according to a Pentagon transcript released nearly four years ago. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the internet holding his head."

The new report prepared by faculty members and students at Georgetown University says that US officials have now concluded that vascular technology, or vein matching, shows that the hand of the unseen man who killed Pearl is that of Khalid.  The report erases any doubts that Khalid personally carried out the beheading.