A former Inter Services Intelligence officer who sheltered the mastermind behind the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl has been appointed Director General of Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau.
Brigadier Ijaz Shah, said to be a trusted friend of President Gen Pervez Musharraf, was home secretary of Punjab province when he played host to Omar Sheikh, who abducted the Wall Street Journal journalist.
Reliable Pakistani sources in London, who confirmed the appointment, say Sheikh stayed with Shah for five days before turning himself in to face charges of Pearl's abduction and murder. He was convicted on both charges and has appealed against his death sentence.
Just why Pearl was killed remains the subject of considerable speculation, but one theory that is popular among overseas Pakistanis is that he was investigating the Pakistani contacts of shoe bomber accused Richard Reid. They say Pearl managed to trace the Pakistani military factory that manufactured the explosives Reid had hidden in the hollowed out heels of his shoes.
In the course of his investigation, Pearl was contacted by a man who claimed to have inside knowledge about Reid's links with Pakistan-based Islamic militants. He called himself Chaudhry Basheer but was actually Islamic militant Omar Sheikh.
Long before he contacted Pearl, Sheikh had been drawn to militant activities, first in Bosnia and later in Kashmir. Following training by ISI-backed militants in Pakistan, he was sent to India where he was arrested for his role in the abduction of three Britons and an American.
When he was freed along with two other militants in exchange for 154 passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft, Sheikh resumed working with the militants who had nurtured him with the active connivance of the ISI.
The militants wanted to teach Pearl a lesson and warn others trying to investigate their worldwide acts of terrorism and links to the ISI. Sheikh was chosen to contact the WSJ journalist owing to his London education and excellent English speaking skills.
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Sheikh's other top-level contact was Lieutenant General Mohammad Aziz Khan, a Kashmir-born former deputy chief of the ISI.
"I know people in the (Pakistani) government and they know me and my work, but it was not a factor in Pearl's abduction," Sheikh told interrogators after he turned himself in.
Shah himself has never revealed what was discussed during the five days he hosted Sheikh in his home. Nor is it known what assurances Sheikh was given in exchange for a promise not to make public his links with the ISI.
It is a measure of Shah's success in 'handling' Sheikh that he has now been promoted to his new job as head of the Intelligence Bureau. The position gives him new powers to ensure that the story of Sheikh's role in the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl remains buried, at least in the near future.
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