Who Killed Daniel Pearl (13 page)

Omar, it becomes apparent, is at the heart of the whole affair.

Omar, nice, polite Omar, is at every demonstration organized by the committee.

Omar cuts classes. Omar slacks off in his reading. At the school library, Omar borrows only books on the Balkans or
The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order
by Samuel P. Huntington to which, in the coming months, he will not cease to refer. He doesn't miss a single television program on Bosnia. He doesn't miss a single article, and not infrequently, I'm told, Omar interrupts a class or a professor, even bounding up on the platform to shame him, and to shame the students for such terrible apathy in the face of the Bosnian tragedy: “No Sir!” he growls. “Yes Sir!”—except that he's come a long way since the Forest School and George Paynter's classes, and now his “No Sir! Yes Sir!” is pronounced in the name of an all-important solidarity with Europe's capital of suffering.

In a word, Omar is touched by the grace of Bosnia.

Omar has become, in a few weeks, enraged and obsessed by Sarajevo.

Omar tells anyone who will listen that he won't know a day, not an hour, of rest or peace as long as one man, woman, or child in Bosnia faces suffering.

Finally, for the last evening of “Bosnia Week,” the committee has obtained the right from the school authorities to show a film of outrage, featuring testimonies on the horrors of the war. There are three, maybe four hundred people, crammed into a too-small room, to see the film and stay for the debate that follows. And Omar is there, in the first row, overwhelmed by what he sees, moved to his very depths, struck dumb. He relates in his journal, written during his Indian imprisonment, that it was the first, the strongest and the most durable political revelation of his life.

So much so that a few weeks later, when a London Pakistani, Asad Khan, holds another conference at the London School to declare that slogans no longer suffice, that now is the time to join words with action, and that a convoy will depart during Easter vacation with fresh supplies for the martyred city of Sarajevo, that a “Caravan of Mercy” will form to go into Bosnian territory to bring the besieged a modest but fervent expression of support (a few doing what, there again, is being done at the same time all over prosperous Europe), exactly seven volunteer to accompany three trucks loaded with food and clothing to bring relief to the city, and among the seven who, timidly, approach Asad Khan at the end of his conference to say that, yes, they are ready, but that it would help if Khan would talk to their parents and convince them, is young Omar Sheikh.

One film . . .

One humanitarian caravan proposing to challenge the blockade imposed by the Serbs and accepted by other nations . . .

As for the caravan, I'd have to be blind not to see the link with the reflex I myself had a few months earlier when gentle lunatics from Equilibre, a humanitarian association in Lyon, came to see me. They too, had it in their heads to force the Serbian blockade and get to Sarajevo.

As for the film, well I must confess that, the coincidence of the dates, the theme, what Omar himself said of the images that overwhelmed him and the way he described them in his diary, and what others who saw the screening told me—the image of the mutilated body of a young thirteen-year-old Bosnian, raped then killed by Serb militias; images of mass graves and concentration camps; sequences shot in a besieged quarter which, to me, sounded like Dobrinja—added up to my believing for a moment that the film, if not
Bosna!,
was my preceding film, the first one I dedicated to Bosnian martyrs,
One Day in the Death of Sarajevo,
made in late 1992 from images by Thierry Ravalet, and shown in Paris but also in London during the same weeks in November.

But it wasn't my film after all.

I succeeded, in a video store next to the Finsbury mosque, in getting my hands on one of the rare cassettes still in existence of the film that changed Omar's life.

It was a forty-five minute film,
Destruction of a Nation
, produced by the Islamic Relief, based in Moseley Road, Birmingham.

It was a good film.

It was a truthful film, put together with archival footage, some of which I would use in
Bosna!

It was a film that, moreover, and to my great surprise, opens with an interview with Haris Silajzic, the social-democrat who was at the time the secular counterpart to the Muslim nationalist of Alija Izetbegovic.

It wasn't my film. But at the same time, it almost could have been. It was another film, written and edited by others, with intentions and ulterior motives that were not mine—but, made of images I know by heart and that mean a great deal to me.

I don't know if Daniel Pearl and I crossed paths or not in Asmara. But I know that his killer was roused by scenes I could have filmed. And I know that he arrived in Sarajevo in March or April 1993, which is to say—the notes in my book
Le Lys et la Cendre
are proof—at the precise moment I was there myself.

When the Pearl affair broke, certain people would try to explain it in terms of the rancor of a little Pakistani humiliated by the English.

They would serve up the old story of a child who is different, persecuted because he's different, champing at the bit, waiting for the hour of revenge.

Notably, Peter Gee, the English musician who served a sentence for cannabis smuggling in Tihar Jail in Delhi, from1997 to 2000, and who knew Omar during his first incarceration for the kidnapping in New Delhi. He freely talks about the Omar whom he knows better than anyone— they spent hours discussing philosophy and life, they played chess and Scrabble, sang, talked of Islam, evoked their respective adolescences (one at the London School, the other at Sussex University), they gave their fellow prisoners courses in general culture and geography, and thanks to the destiny imposed by alphabetical order (Mr. O. as in Omar; Mr. P. as in Peter) they slept side by side for months in the terrible dormitory of Prison Number 4 where more than a hundred were packed. “Well,” says Peter Gee, “Omar became what he is because of a childhood wound. Omar kidnapped, then killed Daniel Pearl because England is a racist country and throughout his childhood he was called a ‘Pakistani bastard.'”

There is no need for me to challenge a testimony, the accuracy of which I will have occasion to verify at other points in this investigation.

But I don't believe this theory.

I don't much believe, in general, explanations of the type: childhood humiliation, rejection, desire for revenge, etcetera.

And it seems to me that here the idea is particularly absurd.

First of all it flouts what we are told, not by the diviners of what has come, nor those obsessed by premonitions, nor those who picture the monster-already-peeking-out-from-behind-the-good-boy, but by the actual witnesses to Omar's adolescence, those who knew him and report: a perfect Englishman, I repeat, integrated without problems into an England that he never experienced as hostile to who he was.

It minimizes what we know of the London School of Economics in those years, when it was a model of liberalism, open to the world and its cultures, cosmopolitan in word and deed, and tolerant: Did it not have, in 1992–1993, according to the Islamic Society archives, more than one hundred Muslim students? How could Omar have felt himself different, ostracized, when we know that over half of these students, all religions and nationalities taken together, were born outside of England?

But the idea is absurd above all because the facts are there and even if they are embarrassing or shocking, even if I was the first, once aware of them, to have taken them as very bad news, they are, alas, undeniable. If we must put a date on the turning point, designate precisely the moment that saw Omar's life diverge, if we must put a name on the event that led this secular and moderate Muslim to understand his membership in the Muslim world and his ties to the Occident as antagonistic, if we want to mark with a black stone the event that caused him to think that an inexorable war opposed, from now on, the two worlds and that it was his duty to take part in this war, if we want to make the effort to listen to what he himself said and wrote incessantly, and initially in a passage in his diary where he explains that just the mere thought of the raped adolescent in
Destruction of a Nation
is enough, years later, to put him into quasi-convulsions— that event is the war in Bosnia.

The instant he decides to go, Omar is no longer quite the same.

He still plays chess.

He continues his arm wrestling tournaments and is even on the British national team that in December, in Geneva, will compete in the world championships.

But his heart is no longer in it.

His mind, Pittal and Saquib tell me, is elsewhere, over there, in Sarajevo which, according to them, preoccupies him completely.

And now, when he plays in a public chess match or accepts a challenge to arm wrestle on the stage of the cafeteria, it's under the double condition that those in attendance bet big and that the money goes to Bosnia.

He, who dedicated himself, without qualms, to the study of finance and who had already created, as early as his last year at the Forest School, a small amateur stock market company, now starts introducing to his friends new theories of Islamic finance, Mohammed's prohibition of interest on loans, and finance mechanisms that can be used as alternatives.

He, who according to his friends knew nothing more of the Koran than what is known in assimilated English families, which is to say very little, starts to quote it all the time, to ask and to ask out loud questions as decisive as, has a good Muslim the right to enrich himself during the time of his pilgrimage? He is heard wondering how can one be a banker without betraying the s
haria
, how does this or that
sura
help distinguish good finance from impious finance, or how another
sura
justifies opposing the trendy futures market sweeping the City, fascinating his fellows preparing for their careers.

He reads
Islam and the Economic Challenge
by a certain Umer Chapra.

He reads a compendium of texts—Abu Yusuf, Abu Ubaid, Ibn Taimiyya, Al-Mawardi—entitled
Origin of Islam Economics.

He watches a documentary on the BBC, titled
The Invitation
, about Muslim integration in Great Britain, and it infuriates him.

But the truth is that his energy is concentrated only on the journey to Bosnia. He thinks only of that, he occupies himself with only that. He comes to classes only to talk about his precious journey, to promote the idea of the “Convoy of Mercy,” convince his friends, collect money, blankets, foodstuffs. The real truth is that once he leaves, he never comes back.

He is still enrolled at the London School, but he doesn't return after Easter.

He re-enrolls, or his family re-enrolls him, in September, for a new year, but again he doesn't appear.

Where is Omar? What's become of him? Is it true that Omar joined the Bosnian army? Is he dead? Wounded? Taken prisoner by the Serbs? By a war lord? The rumors, at school, are flying fast. The legend swells. Muslims and non-Muslims alike, all are fascinated by the strange destiny of this polite young man, so nice, so perfectly English, who seems to have lost himself, like a new T. E. Lawrence, or Kurtz from
Heart of Darkness
, in a distant theater.

Only Saquib Qureshi sees him again. One time. In September 1993. Maybe October, he's not sure. Omar arrived without warning one afternoon in the Three Tuns Pub where he used to come for arm wrestling matches. Except that he's not the same Omar. “I have never seen,” Saquib tells me, “a man change so much, in so little time. Physically, to begin with, he's changed. The beard. He's wearing the mujahideen beard now, just the size of a hand. He wears the traditional Pakistani pajamas. He doesn't have the same look. And not quite the same voice.” “What are you still doing here?” he says to Saquib, as they go arm in arm, like before, walking on Houghton Street. “How can you continue courses with Fred Halliday, while so many Bosnians are dying?” And when Saquib asks, “What's the alternative? What do you propose in place of Halliday?” the new Omar gives him an answer that, at the time, surprises him, yes, but in retrospect, chills his blood: “Kidnappings. Kidnap people and exchange them for actions by the international community in favor of Bosnia, that's what I propose. There, for example”—he points toward the Indian embassy across the street—“there, you see, we could kidnap the Indian ambassador.” Then he gestures toward the school. “Or, even simpler, the son of a Pakistani minister—I've made inquiries, he's arriving this year.”

CHAPTER 4
RETURN TO SARAJEVO

I went to Sarajevo.

I took advantage of a literary symposium organised by the Centre André Malraux to return to the Bosnia Omar and I have in common.

With my friend Semprun, I debated the identity and the future of Europe. I discovered the island of Hvar, in Croatia, where I went with my old friend, Samir Landzo. He'd gotten thin, Samir, and melancholy. People are ill-disposed towards veterans in Bosnia today, he tells me. It's no longer an advantage, but rather a disadvantage. It's no longer a safe-conduct, but something that makes people look at you askance. “Oh! Sarajevo's changed, you know. You won't recognize anything any more! The shirkers, the people from the outside, the profiteers have the advantage now. The people who didn't fight are in power now, and they resent us, the combatants of the first hour. At court, it was very clear. My lawyer tried to use my past as an argument, to say, ‘A résistant, a hero, cannot have done what he is charged with.' He tried to find witnesses to say, ‘Samir L. was one of the first defenders of the city. This very young man was one of those who had the right reflex. It is to people like him that Sarajevo today owes, etcetera.' Well, bad idea, that was almost worse.”