Pakistani Officials said on Monday they have arrested a suspect in connection with the brutal 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, according to ABC News. Pearl was beheaded in a gruesome video eventually posted online. Officials told ABC News the suspect Qari Abdul Hayee who often used the alias Asadullah, was captured Sunday in a targeted operation by the Pakistani Rangers. The paramilitary unit is n the city of Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city.
Pearl was kidnapped in January 2002 while he was en route to interview a Pakistani terrorist, only to be killed days later.
In 2007, self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, reportedly confessed to having killed Pearl, but whether he personally carried out the beheading remained in question. KSM who is currently in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, has never been charged with the crime.
Pakistani officials said they do not believe Hayee carried out the murder, but said he was "privy to the whole situation," ABC News reported. He was part of the terror group that carried out the crime. In 2011 a man named Abdul Hayee was identified as one of 27 people allegedly involved in Pearl's kidnapping, investigated by Georgetown University called The Pearl Project. He is currently being interrogated and is expected to be handed over to police, who will formally initiate legal proceedings, officials also said.
