Ra’anan Gissin, a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to avenge the murder of Daniel Pearl.
The State of Israel will not remain silent, until it captures the murderers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who had been abducted last month in Pakistan and eventually murdered by his abductors, Gissin said.
This startling declaration was made Sunday by Gissin, senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, responsible, amongst other issues, for foreign press matters.
Gissin spoke on a popular ABC radio program in New York in order to discuss Palestinian-Israeli relations. However, he told the interviewer, Steven Millsberg, “Be sure that those who killed Daniel Pearl won’t get away with it. It may take time, but Israel’s long hand will reach them”.
Millsberg introduced Gissin as spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, and the comments coming from Gissin had been perceived as a decision made by the Israeli government.
“Israel is the only place in the world where Jews can defend themselves” Gissin explained.
On Tuesday, Gissin’s remarks were broadcast again in New York.
In a related development, the British defense and security issues journal Foreign Report revealed in its Tuesday publication that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon instructed last week the Head of Israel’s Intelligence – the Mossad, Efraim HaLevy to begin an international hunt for Daniel Pearl’s murderers, and to eliminate them. The magazine cited Israeli Intelligence sources.
Foreign Report said that Sharon had been shocked from Pearl’s last sentence, as appears from the reported videotape, saying “I am Jewish and my father is Jewish”.
The fact that the reporter had been killed, apparently because he was Jewish was the prime reason Sharon decided to call upon the Mossad and order the killing of Pearl’s murderers, the sources added.
Pearl had been abducted by a radical Islamic group, which brutally murdered him.
In the meantime, the Israeli Prime Minister Office claims that Sharon had never viewed the videotape. For his part, Gissin tried Tuesday to go back on his words claiming, “I did not say that Israel will catch the murderers, but I am confident that eventually they will come to justice”.
Meanwhile, Pakistan will consider the extradition of Sheikh Omar Saeed and his accomplices, who are involved in the alleged abduction and murder of Pearl, to the United States.
The Pakistani Jang newspaper reported, citing reliable diplomatic sources that US officials have contacted the relevant authorities in Pakistan through informal channels and have expressed their keen desire that the individuals arrested in the abduction case were to be handed over to Washington, so that they could be investigated and tried in the United States.
Sources have informed that before taking any decision on Sheikh Omar Saeed and other accused individuals, Pakistan would complete the legal procedure against them in the country.
Sheikh Omar Saeed is a British citizen. Pakistan will also consult the British government on this decision so that the British government could be kept informed in this regard. (Albawaba.com)
