Who Killed Daniel Pearl (16 page)

I requested an appointment with the minister.

“They tell me you are a lover of literature. Well, I am an novelist. I am writing a novel whose main characters are based on Pearl and Omar, and so I need to meet Omar,” I told him, using my good old cover.

The minister listened to me. He had a strange, old-fashioned face, a mixture of Paul Claudel and Saint-John Perse, with an amazing capacity to change expressions instantly. He would be amiable in the extreme, excessively so. And then, when he thought I wasn't looking, a gleam of murderous ferociousness would shine through. I read in his eyes that he dreamed of someone ridding him of these foreigners who incessantly bugged him with this goddamn Pearl affair.

And in fact, he told me clearly, “What? A novel about Pearl and Omar? Since when does one write novels about such characters? Has the French literature I so love and respect fallen so low as to find its sustenance in such appalling affairs?”

Well, at least he listened to me. He saw I was persistent, and that I seemed to really believe that the nobility of literature could lie in creating a story out of an actual fact. He even pretended to take notes. But I had come at the wrong time, he said. They had just had elections, and the government was resigning in an hour. So I would have to introduce myself to Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, the spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, who was really in charge here. Yes, I can assure you, he is the boss now. I'm leaving, it's over, you're my last appointment as minister, but he, on the contrary, is staying on. He'll take care of this for you, you'll see.

Now it was Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema's turn to give me a lecture.

His hair and moustache were colored with henna, and he wore a green, houndstooth suit that complimented his tall figure. With a steely look that expressed an absence of affability, he began by asking me, “But what are you all coming to this country to look for? In every society, there are areas it's not a good idea to walk through. What would you say if I, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, started messing around in the underworld of Paris or Chicago? That's what this American Jewish journalist did, he went outside the boundaries. Be careful not to make the same mistake.”

And then, “Besides, why did he rent a house? Doesn't it seem suspect that a Jewish journalist, based in India, would rent a house for 40,000 rupees a month? Suppose I want to see someone in France. I get a room in a hotel and I sit down with him in my room, I'm not going to rent a house. The fact that he did proves that he intended to stay, and that, you see—let's not tell any tales—is no longer journalism! That is why he is suspected of having worked for a foreign power.”

And then, as to Omar, “As for Sheikh, you who are a writer, don't you find him strange, Omar? Look at the photos of him when he left prison in India. He seems to be in good health, he doesn't look like someone who just got out of prison. And that's why sometimes I have the feeling this whole thing could have been fabricated, from beginning to end, by the Indian secret services. Did you know that this Sheikh made at least 24 calls to India on his mobile phone? And did you know that at least two of them were to close aides of a minister?”

Nothing happened there either. He took note, he promised, he gave me all the numbers, including his mobile phone number, where I could reach him “at any time.” But that request, like the official requests I made to return to the place where Pearl was held so I could take photos, or to interview the famous Gilani he thought he was going to see the day of his kidnapping, remained a dead letter.

I couldn't see Omar.

Everything seemed to be organized so I would never have any contact with him.

To give some substance to my imagination of what he was like physically, I had to settle for a fleeting glimpse of him in May, as he was being transferred from the Hyderabad prison. As in Karachi, the police had had the courtroom evacuated, with the exception, for reasons unknown, of two foreign journalists. All of us, Pakistanis and foreigners, were stuck a hundred yards beyond, at the entrance to the street, behind metal barriers and sandbags guarded by teams of over-equipped commandos. Sharpshooters kept an eye out for any signs of disorder from the rooftops of a nearby hotel and some apartment buildings. Immediately surrounding the prison, troop transports and tanks appeared ready to move every time one of the protagonists of the trial or the judge or the prosecuting attorney appeared, escorted by his own armored car. There were incredibly nervous men in uniform everywhere, eyeing each other as much as they were watching for any potential assailant. Had the police gotten word that Omar had devised a plan to escape, with the help of the secret service, during his transfer? Were intelligence services persuaded, on the contrary, that the police had put together this scenario, to saddle them with the responsibility? In this state-of-siege atmosphere, behind the bullet-proof window of a paddy wagon with its escort of armed vehicles, I saw the figure of Omar Sheikh, caged like a wild beast. The lower half of his face was hidden by a scarf. And then, as he was crossing the barrier that blocked our entry to the other side, the commanding officer of the detachment threw a white blanket over his head. But I just had the time to see a tall figure in a traditional white
shalwar kameez
flash by. His hands were tied in front of him, his face was a bit thick, and in his eyes was an expression of triumph.

And then, like a painter, I had to work at length with photos of him. In London and Karachi, I had to multiply the images, collect all the portraits of him I could find, unpublished or in the press, like the two prints from
The Guardian
and
Dawn
that had struck me so the first day. I had to thoroughly and intently examine his features on paper to try to pierce the mystery, or the glimmer of the mystery that transformed the model Englishman into such a murderer.

There is first of all the black-and-white photo everyone is familiar with, probably a school photo, where he looks like a nice, chunky boy, kind, affable and well-behaved. A pouting mouth, chubby cheeks, soft features, normal for his young age. There is, just barely, something troubling in the eyes, a sort of a cold vibration that is frightening. Then again, that may be just the quality of the photo, or something I'm reading in to it myself.

There's another photo, perhaps taken a little later, when he was at the London School of Economics. Dark suit. Black tie. Thick forelock primly combed down over the forehead. A greediness about the mouth, a new firmness of the chin. The photo is fuzzy, especially around the eyes, that seem to have been gobbled up by the light. Except, it's bizarre—the eyes are nonetheless the most expressive part of his face, with their strange stare, pitiless and sad, the pupils bottomless pools that suddenly make him look older.

Grenville Lloyd, known as “the Panther,” a referee of the arm wrestling matches Omar loved to fight in during his last London period, gave me two astonishing, unpublished photos taken at about that time. Decor of a pub, with a television suspended from the wall on a moveable arm, a blackboard with “Today's Special” written on it in the background. A referee in a white T-shirt and a navy blue baseball cap and a gold badge, wearing an intense expression, almost frightened, as though he were going to yell. And standing in the foreground, separated by a table that comes up to their waists where plastic-covered foam cushions have been placed to break the fall of the arm on the wood, two very young men locked in a struggle. Omar is the bigger of the two, wearing a sweat-soaked, light-colored undershirt and navy blue wool pants with a brown leather belt. You can tell he has a hairy chest. His arm, also hairy, is swollen with the effort of making his adversary give. The other hand, closed around a wooden post, is holding on so tightly not just his knuckles but his entire phalanxes are white, the small, mobile bones seeming ready to pierce the skin. But what is the most striking is his expression—his eyes lowered, features tense and deformed with effort, the nose pinched, as though he were compelled to stop breathing, and something at once childish and concentrated, wild, pitiless, in the lower part of the face . . . Omar Sheikh isn't playing, he hates.

There is an extraordinary document dating from the same time that Leecent Thomas, known as “The Force,” his Jamaican buddy and sporting partner from arm wrestling days, brought me one evening at my hotel in London. Not a photo, but a video—and what a video! Several hours, continuously filmed, on June 18, 1992, in a London pub, where we see, all at once alive, full of strength and action, the very young Omar Sheikh, contending for a championship. Omar appears eleven times. With eleven different opponents. But it's always the same situation. The pub, the crowd yelling and applauding. Young people with close-cropped hair and tattoos, muscle-bound torsos, sitting on the floor with pints of beer. Bad music in the background, smoke. An atmosphere at once rough and good-humored, very 1960s Teddy Boys. A referee. And Omar who, each time, walks into the frame, positions himself at the table and confronts a new adversary.

The video is of poor quality. The color is off. Depending on the light, Omar's pants, filmed the same day, look either green or brown. The sound, especially, is non-existent—a hubbub, with bits and pieces of indistinct voices, the television braying in the background, almost covering the sound of the music. But what stands out is the little number he does, the game of his character.

The way he walks into the scene, for example: without a glance towards the camera, nor towards his opponent; the others look at him, exchange looks among themselves, wink at the public, mess around. He is completely serious, concentrating, barely blinking. He's chewing gum.

His rapport with the referee: The referee is a constant presence. He corrects positions, gives final advice, encourages, rectifies—“sit up straight, elbow right on the table . . . not like that, the grip, like that, the wrist . . . relax . . . ” But while the others listen, sometimes talk or joke with him, and the last-minute tips always produce a certain familiarity, a nod of the head, a complicity, Omar never once glances at the damned referee. Tight-lipped still, he does what he's told, of course, but his attention is always elsewhere. Cut the crap—are you done with the useless advice now?

His very strange way of warming up, too: He stamps, taps his foot and nods his head as though he were searching for the beat. He takes his opponent's hand, does it again several times to get the right grip, and when he has, he paws it, shakes it, still chewing his gum, and always rhythmically, as though he were jacking him off, shakes it gently. Finally he presses up against the table, rubs against it. With his chest projected, his stomach glued to the wood of the table, nostrils flaring, fixed stare, he's the one who looks like he's having a wank now. Once, the situation is so obscene the referee intervenes—I can't hear what he's saying, but he shoves Omar a little and unglues his pelvis from the table.

His tricks—for he is really the craftiest of all. Against a colossus with a shaved head, for example—the double of Gregorious, the wrestler in Jules Dassin's
Forbans de la Nuit
—a mountain of muscle and fat, with arms like thighs, hands like shovels, twice the weight of Omar and almost twice his size. And we see Omar, tiny and thin, his hand drowned in the huge paw of the other, flexing his muscles, mobilizing his entire body to resist, but then weakening, bending his arm a little . . . that's it, he can't take any more, he's obviously lost . . . except that, when the colossus is sure of it and, thinking he's won, eases up on the pressure, Omar suddenly marshals his muscles, reverses the movement and, with one thrust, just one, plasters the wrestler's arm on the table to the cheers of the crowd.

His air of indescribable pride, finally, as when he wins the point against Gregorious—head thrown back, a slight smile, the only time he brightens up, that expresses either pride, or regret, or even, bitterness, I can't tell which. It's all there, on this video, beneath the mask—his secret face of a brute.

And then, dating from the same period, a last unpublished photo found at Frank Pittal's, the Jewish friend of the family, organizer of the arm wrestling tournaments, the man who paraded his Omar through all the pubs of England, like a circus owner showing off his bearded lady. It's a group photo that resembles a class picture. But no. It's in Geneva. And it's much more important than a school picture—it's the family photo of the English arm wrestling team at the December, 1992, World Championship. Omar is not in the front row with the two kneeling heavyweights, nor in the second or third row, both standing. He is, bizarrely, between the two back rows, the only one who is out of line, with a big smile on his face. Of the nineteen boys and two girls his smile is the broadest. Because he has won? Because he's just glad to be there, when his actual record, his official victories, his own merit, wouldn't have been sufficient in itself? (I heard repeatedly that the federation was poor and couldn't reimburse travel expenses, so they needed champions who could also pay their own airfare.) He looks happy, yes. Carefree. No longer the slightest trace, suddenly, of either rancor or hatred. This is just weeks before his departure for Bosnia. A few months before his conversion. And he looks like a happy child again.

There are more recent photos, after the crime, after the
crimes—
ten years have passed, the conversion has taken place. He has gone to Bosnia, and from Bosnia to Afghanistan, and from Afghanistan to India where he organized his first kidnappings before serving his first prison term. Young Omar Sheikh has become, before as well as after the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, one of the most prominent jihadists of Pakistan. The former student of the London School of Economics, the arm wrestling champ, the nice teenager whose old friends all praise his kindness, his politeness—is one of the most hunted terrorists on earth.