Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (احمد عمر سعید شیخ) (sometimes known as Umar Sheikh, Sheikh Omar, Sheik Syed, or by the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad" ) (born December 23, 1973) is a British-born terrorist of Pakistani descent with links to various Islamist militant organisations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, al-Qaeda, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Taliban.

He was arrested and served time in prison for the 1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India, an act which he acknowledges. He was released from captivity in 1999 and provided safe passage into Afghanistan with the support of Taliban in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814. He is most well known for his role in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Sheikh Omar Saeed was arrested by Pakistani police on February 12, 2002, in Lahore, in conjunction with the Pearl kidnapping, and was sentenced to death on July 15, 2002 for killing Pearl. His judicial appeal has not yet been heard. The delay has been ascribed to his purported links with MI6.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in his book In the Line of Fire, stated that Sheikh was originally recruited by British intelligence agency, MI6, while studying at the London School of Economics. He alleges Omar Sheikh was sent to the Balkans by MI6 to engage in jihadi operations. Musharraf later went on to state, "At some point, he probably became a rogue or double agent".

His complicity in the murder and the reasons behind it are in dispute. At his initial court appearance, he stated, "I don't want to defend this case. I did this... Right or wrong, I had my reasons. I think that our country shouldn't be catering to America's needs", but he subsequently appealed his conviction and is awaiting further progress while in prison. Sheikh's lawyer has stated he will base his client's appeal on the recent admission of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that he is the killer of Daniel Pearl.

He is currently being held in prison in Pakistan.

Early life
In his youth he attended Forest School, Walthamstow, an independent school in North-East London, whose alumni include English cricket captain Nasser Hussain and Peter Greenaway, the filmmaker. Between the ages of 14 and 16 he attended Aitchison College, the most exclusive boys boarding school in Pakistan, where his family had temporarily relocated. He later returned to the United Kingdom to continue at Forest School. He told school friends that he had been in Pakistan learning about jihad, but was not believed. He was a fine chess-player and won a junior London championship. Later, he attended the London School of Economics, where he studied Applied Mathematics and Economics.

Kidnapping of American and British nationals, 1994
He served five years in prison in Ghaziabad in the 1990s in connection with the 1994 abduction of three British travellers, Myles Croston, 28, Paul Rideout, 26 and Rhys Partridge, 27, and one American, Béla Nuss, 43.

Hijacking and release from prison
In 1999, Indian Airlines Flight 814 was hijacked from Nepal. Its hijackers demanded his release along with Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, who were leaders of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, to Pakistan. The plane landed in Kandahar and Taliban militia surrounded the plane, pre-empting any Indian commando operation. After negotiations between the Indian government and the hijackers, the hostages were freed eight days after the hijacking occurred, although a passenger by the name of Ripan Katyal was stabbed to death by one of the hijackers. Omar Sheikh along with the two other prisoners were released in exchange for the hostages.

Media descriptions
The Times describes Saeed Sheikh as "no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan's military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization." According to ABC, Sheikh began working for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 1993. By 1994 he was operating training camps in Afghanistan and had earned the title of bin Laden's "special son.".

In May 2002, the Washington Post quotes an unnamed Pakistani as saying that the ISI paid Sheikh's legal fees during his 1994 trial in India on charges of kidnap.

In 2008, National Geographic Adventure aired a show called Banged up Abroad: "India/Hostage to Terror" in which Sheikh is depicted. He introduced himself to foreigners as Rohit Sharma, a typically Hindu Indian name to disguise his real ethnic background.

Connection with 9/11 hijackers
On October 6, 2001, a senior-level U.S. government official, told CNN that U.S. investigators had discovered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Sheik Syed), using the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad" had sent about $100,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Mohamed Atta. "Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead. In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars—believed to be excess funds from the operation—back to Saeed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11. CNN later confirmed this.

The 9/11 Commission's Final Report states that the source of the funds "remains unknown."

More than a month after the money transfer was discovered, the head of ISI, General Mahmud Ahmed resigned from his position. It was reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating the possibility that Gen. Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta

The Wall Street Journal was one of the only Western news organizations to follow up on the story, citing the Times of India: "US authorities sought General Mahmud Ahmed's removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohamed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmud." Another Indian newspaper, the Daily Excelsior, quoting FBI sources, reported that the "FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Mahmud Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, reports surfaced with regard to the transfer of $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 attacks, who flew a hijacked Boeing commercial airliner into the World Trade Center. General Mahmud Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta."

U.S. investigators later said that this was a confusion with Mustafa al-Hawsawi, also known as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, who is currently held in Guantanamo Bay.

The Pittsburgh Tribune notes that there "are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA."

Sheikh rose to prominence with the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who at the time was in Pakistan investigating connections between the ISI and Islamic militant groups. In Pakistan, Sheikh was sentenced to death for killing Pearl, however his complicity in the execution and the reasons behind it are in dispute.

Pearl kidnapping
Sheikh Omar Saeed was arrested by Pakistani police on February 12, 2002, in Lahore, in conjunction with the Pearl kidnapping. Pearl had been kidnapped, had his throat slit, and then been beheaded. Sheikh told the Pakistani court, however, that he had surrendered to the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency a week earlier.

Sheikh's lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpar claims Sheikh was arrested on February 5, 2002 and not on February 12, and that evidence against the four suspects was fabricated by Pakistani police while the suspects were held in secret for a week. He also claims confessions were obtained under duress of torture and solitary confinement.

Hoax calls nearly trigger war
In the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, tensions increased dramatically between India and Pakistan. On November 28, a hoax caller pretending to be Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee threatened Pakistan President Zardari with war, leading to the Pakistan military being put in high alert. Military aircraft with live ammunition were scrambled to patrol above Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The same caller tried to get in touch with the real Pranab Mukherjee and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by claiming he was President Zardari but was unable to get through to either.

A year after the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper revealed that the hoax caller had been Omar Saeed Sheikh. Using a cell phone he had smuggled into his prison cell, Omar Sheikh made the calls using a British SIM card. After the source of the hoax calls became known, intelligence agents confiscated Omar Sheikh's illegal phones and SIM cards.