The State Department is confirming the death of Daniel Pearl, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reporter kidnapped in Pakistan nearly a month ago. It says the United States will continue working with Pakistan to bring those who killed the American journalist to justice.
Confirmation came from State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who said the American embassy in Pakistan received evidence of the death of Daniel Pearl and that U.S. officials have notified his family and expressed their condolences.
Mr. Boucher condemned the murder as an "outrage" and said both the United States and Pakistan are committed to identifying all the perpetrators of the crime and bringing them to justice.
He said U.S. officials will continue to work closely with Pakistani authorities, who he said had made every effort to locate and free Mr. Pearl.
The statement did not elaborate on the evidence of the killing but security officials in Karachi said it came in a videotape obtained by Pakistani police and shared with U.S. officials.
The U.S. journalist was abducted January 23 in Karachi, after having set out to interview the leader of a radical Muslim faction with links to the al-Qaida terrorist organization.
Pakistani police, who had engaged in an intensive manhunt for the kidnappers, have arrested several people in the case.
They include a militant leader who said in a court hearing earlier this month that he engineered the abduction to protest Pakistan's support for the U.S. war on terrorism.
The confirmation here of Mr. Pearl's death here followed a Wall Street Journal announcement to the same effect, which said its staffers are heartbroken by the news.
The newspaper's editors called the murder an act of barbarism that makes a mockery of everything the kidnappers claimed to believe in.
They said while the kidnappers claimed to be nationalists, their actions must surely bring shame to all true Pakistani patriots.
Mr. Pearl, who was The Wall Street Journal bureau chief for South Asia, was 38-years-old and leaves a wife who is expecting the couple's first child in a matter of weeks.