The widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by terrorists in 2002, has filed a suit in the US federal court against a Pakistani bank for handling money for a charity involved in funding his murder.

The suit also names al Qaeda and at least 15 alleged members of the radical Islamist terrorist group, charging the estates of those who are deceased and several charity groups, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday online.

The Habib Bank Limited named in the suit is Pakistan’s largest commercial bank, the Journal reported.
Mariane Pearl, a French woman who was pregnant with their first child at the time of her husband’s murder in Pakistan, is seeking an unspecified amount in damages for the role played by the Habib Bank and several charities, including the Al-Rashid Trust. A trustee of a successor to the trust, Al-Akhtar International, owned the property where Pearl’s body was found, the Journal reported.

Both trusts have been named by the US Treasury Department and the United Nations as fronts for al Qaeda and its affiliates, the Journal wrote.

The 49-page complaint also names Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. In a book published last year, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf identified him as being involved in Pearl’s murder.

Mohammed, now in US custody at the Guantanamo Bay prison, was captured in Peshawar, Pakistan, a month after Pearl’s killing, and has confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks in US military hearings.
Pearl was researching a story on al Qaeda when he was kidnapped in Karachi, lured by Islamic militants who promised him an interview with one of their leaders.

Habib Bank, however, denied the charges to the Journal.

“This is an absolute shock to me, because this is something that has no basis at all in fact from our point of view,” bank president and chief executive Zakir Mahmood was quoted as saying.