Profile: Saud Memon

Reporter Daniel Pearl moments before he is killed. [Source: Associated Press]Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is murdered. He is reported dead on February 21; his mutilated body is found months later. Police investigators say “there were at least eight to ten people present on the [murder] scene” and at least 15 who participated in his kidnapping and murder. “Despite issuing a series of political demands shortly after Pearl’s abduction four weeks ago, it now seems clear that the kidnappers planned to kill Pearl all along.” [Washington Post, 2/23/2002] Some captured participants later claim 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the one who cuts Pearl’s throat. [MSNBC, 9/17/2002; Time, 1/26/2003] The land on which Pearl was held and murdered reportedly belongs to either the Al Rashid Trust, or one of its supporters, Saud Memon. The Al Rashid Trust, an ostensibly charitable organization that US intelligence linked to the financing of al-Qeada, is closely linked to the jihadi organization Jaish-i-Mohammed and was one of the very first organizations to have its assets frozen after 9/11. It may have been used to funnel money to the 9/11 hijackers in the US (see Early August 2001 and September 24, 2001). [Time, 1/26/2003; Daily Telegraph, 5/9/2004; Tribune, 4/2/2006]

An ill Saud Memon shortly before his death. [Source: Daily Times]Saud Memon, a Pakistani businessman who owns the land where Wall Street Journal report Daniel Pearl is killed in late January 2002 (see January 31, 2002), apparently flees Pakistan for fear of being arrested for Pearl’s death. According to later newspaper accounts in Pakistan and India, Memon is arrested by the FBI in South Africa on March 7, 2003. He is kept at Guantanamo prison for more than two years and then handed over to Pakistani authorities. On April 28, 2007, some unknown men drop Memon in front of his house in Pakistan. He is deathly ill and unable to speak or recognize people. He dies less than one month later on May 18, 2007. Memon has been the top name on the list of Pakistan’s most wanted. In addition to having a suspected role in Pearl’s death, he helped fund the Al Rashid Trust, which has been banned for being an al-Qaeda front. While some suspect a US and/or Pakistan government role in Memon’s disappearance, it is not known for sure what happened to him for those four years. [Associated Press, 5/18/2007; Daily Times (Lahore), 5/19/2007; Indo-Asian News Service, 5/19/2007]