Pakistani police are expected today to formally charge four men arrested in connection with the kidnapping of murdered Wall Street Journalreporter Daniel Pearl, police officials said.
The men include the suspected ringleader, British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Saeed Omar Sheikh who is commonly known as Sheikh Omar. They are due to be presented to a court in Karachi, where Mr Pearl went missing on January 23rd.
"We are going to file interim challan [charge sheet] against Sheikh Omar and three other suspects on abduction and murder as we have expert opinions on the videotape showing Pearl's murder," a senior investigator told Reuters.
But he said police were still hunting seven other suspects and that interim charges could be stalled at the last minute on "any instruction from high-ups or any technical hitch".
Mr Omar was arrested on February 12th. He has been identified in closed-door court hearings by a Pakistani journalist who briefly assisted Mr Pearl, and by a taxi driver who says he dropped the reporter near a restaurant on the evening he went missing.
Mr Pearl, the Wall Street Journal'sSouth Asia bureau chief, disappeared while working on a story about Islamic militants in Pakistan.
A videotape confirming Mr Pearl's death surfaced in Karachi last month, but it is unclear when or where he was killed. His body has not been found.