January 28, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 13, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 27: The police searching for missing US reporter Daniel Pearl said on Sunday they had interrogated five men in connection with the case, but had no idea where the journalist was.

They also dismissed as a hoax an e-mail saying Pearl had been kidnapped which a US official said had been sent to some US and Pakistani media by a group calling itself, “The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty”.

A police official in Lahore said the five men who were briefly detained were involved with a group thought to have links to banned pro-Kashmiri group and the Al Qaeda network.

“They were interrogated in connection with Daniel Pearl’s disappearance,” said the Lahore police official, who asked not to be identified.

“Pearl was actually trying to interview the head of that group who is reported to have good connections and contacts in groups close to Al Qaeda,” he said. The five were released after four hours of questioning.

A nationwide hunt was launched after Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl, 38, went missing on Wednesday in Karachi.

KIDNAPPED: The US official said the e-mail stated Pearl had been kidnapped because he was an agent for the US Central Intelligence Agency and was being kept in “inhumane” conditions to protest against US treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We have checked the e-mail,” said a Karachi police official. “I can only say it’s a hoax, we’re not taking it seriously.”

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told Reuters: “Although we do not normally discuss such matters, in this case I can assure you that Mr Pearl does not now, nor has he ever, worked for the CIA.”

Pearl, who is based in the Indian city of Mumbai, had been in Karachi working on a story about Richard Reid, the alleged shoe-bomber charged with trying to blow up an airliner last month, press group Reporters sans Frontiers said on Saturday.—Reuters