ABC News: Daniel Pearl’s father doubts KSM beheaded him

Anything’s possible, but let’s note up front that Mohammed’s suspected role in this particular chapter of jihad is based on more than his say so. They’ve got forensic evidence linking him to the crime. Pretty compelling evidence, too.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, [Judea] Pearl said that from what he knows about the investigation there are still many unanswered questions trailing back to Pakistan. “We still don’t know the whereabouts of the guy who owned the nursery, Memon, where Danny was held,” said Pearl. “We don’t know the identities and the whereabouts of the three Arabs who came the last day [of Danny's captivity] and performed the murder.” While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claims to be one of them, Pearl says the facts “don’t match his story.”…

Now a visiting journalism professor at Georgetown University, [former WSJ reporter Asra] Nomani is heading up The Pearl Project, a university sponsored investigative reporting project where a team of journalism students and professors will spend a year investigating who killed her former colleague.

Judging from the statement Pearl’s widow, Mariane, issued today, she has her doubts too.

Pearl’s father is right about one thing: what on earth is Bush doing releasing transcripts of Mohammed’s statements during the tribunal proceedings for jihadis to wank off to?

“There’s no need for the public to read his diatribes about how bad America is and read graphic details of his crimes,” he says. “You know what this does? It sends a message to his comrades in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. We don’t understand that these people are aroused by cruelty.”

Former CIA Osama-hunter Michael Scheuer made the same point on Fox News radio today. Listen to him unload on Bush for his “craven retreat” in the face of St. John of Tucson’s tut-tutting about detainee treatment and tribunal transparency. Scheuer says we’re not taking the threat seriously enough; no kidding.

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