http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2036947.cms

'9/11 planner had role in Pearl plot'
[ 28 Sep, 2006 2102hrs ISTAP ]

ISLAMABAD: The top Al Qaida operative accused of masterminding 9/11 either killed or took part in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, Pakistan's president has alleged for the first time.

General Musharraf's claim, made in his memoirs, could be used to try to clear one of Pearl's four convicted killers, who is appealing his death sentence, the prisoner's lawyer said on Wednesday.

Musharraf accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of taking part in the killing. "The man who may have actually killed Pearl or at least participated in his butchery, we eventually discovered, was none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al Qaida's No. 3," Musharraf wrote in In The Line of Fire.

Rohan Gunaratna, head of terrorism research at Singapore's Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said it has long been understood that it was Mohammed, who killed Pearl to prove to the West after September11 that Al Qaida was still bent on killing Americans.