According to the new report, which was prepared by faculty members and students at Georgetown University, U.S. officials have concluded that vascular technology, or vein matching, shows that the hand of the unseen man who killed Pearl on video is that of Mohammed. The report also says Mohammed told the FBI that a senior al-Qaeda operative advised him to take control of Pearl from his original kidnappers…

According to the report, Mohammed told FBI interrogators at Guantanamo Bay that he received a call from Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian and a senior figure in al-Qaeda.

Adel “says, ‘Listen, he’s been kidnapped. These people don’t know what to do with him. They want to know if we want him,’ ” Mohammed told the FBI, according to the report, which is based on hundreds of interviews as well as court records, FBI reports, and Pearl’s e-mails and personal notes. Adel “thought this was an opportunity. We can take advantage of it. He said he wanted to make sure it’s an Al Qaeda thing.”…

Mohammed slashed Pearl’s throat, killing him, but one of his accomplices failed to operate the video camera, which they had brought to capture the murder for propaganda purposes. Mohammed restaged the killing, this time decapitating Pearl, according to the report. He then dismembered Pearl’s body, and it was buried on the compound. Guards washed the bloody floor and then prayed, foreheads to the ground, on the same surface where their prisoner had just been killed, the report said.