On January 23, 2002, he was kidnapped by Islamist militants while he was on his way to what he had expected would be an interview with Pakistani religious cleric Mubarak Ali Gilani in the city of Karachi.

[1][2][3] Pearl had moved to Mumbai, India, upon taking up a regional posting by his newspaper and later entered Pakistan to cover the war on terror, which was launched by the United States in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001.

A few days after his disappearance, Pearl's captors released a video in which he is recorded condemning American foreign policy and repeatedly telling the camera that he and his family are Jewish and have visited Israel, following which his throat is slit and his head severed from his body.

[6][7][8] Sheikh had previously been arrested by Indian authorities for his involvement in the 1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India, and is also an affiliate of Jaish-e-Mohammed and al-Qaeda, among other armed jihadist organizations.

His father is an Israeli-American of Polish Jewish descent, and his mother was an Iraqi Jew whose family was saved from the Farhud by Muslim neighbors.

[11][12] The history of the family and its connections to Israel are described by Judea Pearl in the Los Angeles Times article, "Roots in the Holy Land".

Following a trip to the Soviet Union, China and Europe, Pearl started his professional journalism career at the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle in western Massachusetts.

He became more involved in international affairs: his most notable investigations covered the ethnic wars in the Balkans, where he discovered that charges of an alleged genocide committed in Kosovo were unsubstantiated.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a member of the Harkat ul-Ansar/Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and later Jaish-e-Mohammed,[b][24][25] has admitted to planning and committing the kidnapping but denied being involved in Pearl's murder.

The beheading video of Pearl was released by Jaish-e-Mohammed, under the pseudonym of "National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" (also used in ransom emails) and Jaish member Amjad Farooqi was reportedly involved in the kidnapping and murder.

[26][27][28] In a January 2011 report prepared by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), members of other Pakistani terrorist groups such as Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan were also stated to be involved in Pearl's kidnapping and murder.

On May 16, his severed head and decomposed body were found cut into ten pieces, and buried, along with an identifying jacket, in a shallow grave at Gadap, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Karachi.

[34][35] When the police found Pearl's remains three months after his murder, Abdul Sattar Edhi, a Pakistani philanthropist, collected all of the body parts and took them to the morgue.

He helped ensure that Pearl's remains were returned to the United States, where he was later interred in the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

[39] The video was released under the name of the "National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty", a pseudonym of the Jaish-e-Mohammed,[b][26][40] with the captors repeating their earlier emailed demands for the release of all Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and repatriation of all Pakistani nationals detained by the US, the end of US presence in Pakistan and the delivery of F-16 fighter planes paid for by Pakistan in the 1980s but not delivered at the time.

[49] In a confession read during his Tribunal hearing, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.

[58] In making their appeal, Daniel's father, Judea Pearl, said "We are standing up for justice not only for our son, but for all our dear friends in Pakistan so they can live in a society free of violence and terror and raise their children in peace and harmony.

[60][61] On September 28, 2020, Pakistan's Supreme Court accepted the appeal by the family of Daniel Pearl seeking to keep Omar Said Sheikh on death row as punishment for beheading their son, and to uphold the life sentences of the three co-conspirators.

The court also ordered that the three Pakistanis co-conspirators, who were sentenced to life in prison for their part in Pearl's kidnapping and murder by beheading, should be freed.

[67] At her daily briefing, White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki expressed outrage at the verdict and asked Pakistan to review all of its legal options, including possible extradition to the United States.

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken issued a statement declaring that the "US is committed to securing justice for Daniel Pearl's family and holding terrorists accountable.

[70] On February 2, 2021, Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered Omar Said Sheikh (the alleged mastermind of Pearl's abduction and beheading) to be taken off death row after 18 years and moved to a so-called government safe house.

[71] On March 8, 2021, authorities in Karachi sent Omar Saeed Sheikh (whose sentence was reduced to time served of 7 years for murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl) to a rest house within the premises of Kot Lakhpat Jail.

[82][83] There were plans for a film adaptation of the book, to be directed by Tod Williams and star Josh Lucas, focusing on the last few days of Daniel Pearl's life.

Judea Pearl has written that at first this statement surprised him, but he later understood it to be a reference to the town-building tradition of his family, in contrast with the destructive aims of his captors.

Judea Pearl then enlarged upon the idea by inviting responses from artists, government leaders, authors, journalists, scientists, scholars, rabbis, and others.

The book is organized by five themes: Identity; Heritage; Covenant, Chosenness, and Faith; Humanity and Ethnicity; Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) and Justice.

Contributors include Theodore Bikel, Alan Dershowitz, Kirk Douglas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Larry King, Amos Oz, Shimon Peres, Daniel Schorr, Elie Wiesel, Peter Yarrow, and A.B.

Other lecturers have included Anderson Cooper, David Brooks, Ted Koppel, Larry King, Jeff Greenfield, Daniel Schorr, and Thomas Friedman.

In 2010, Moment established The Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative[97] to provide grants and mentors for independent journalists to conduct in-depth reporting on anti-Semitism and other prejudices.