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December 16, 2008 (LPAC)--The British-Pakistani terrorist who was tried and convicted for the kidnapping and murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, was identified as an MI-6 agent in 2006 by the then-President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf.

The British-born terrorist in question, Omar Saeed Sheikh, is also featured in the article by Jeffrey Steinberg, "Shut Down Anglo-Saudi Global Terror Apparatus Behind Mumbai Attack," appearing on the LPAC website and the Dec. 19 issue of EIR.

In his 2006 memoir In the Line of Fire, President Musharraf recounted that Omar Sheik "is a British national born to Pakistani parents in London" in December 1973. His early education was in the UK, then he spent four years at Lahore's Aitcheson College. He then went back to the UK to attend the London School of Economics.

"It is believed in some quarters that while Omar Sheikh was at the LSE he was recruited by the British intelligence agency MI-6," Musharraf wrote. "It is said that MI-6 persuaded him to take an active part in demonstrations against Serbian aggression in Bosnia and even sent him to Kosovo to join the jihad. At some point he probably became a rogue or double agent."

Musharraf says that on Sheikh's return from Bosnia, he went to Pakistan and met Maulana Abdul Jabbar, who took him to Khost for guerrilla training. Then in 1994 he went to India to try to secure the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, who was serving a seven-year prison sentence in India for instigating conflict in Kashmir. To attempt to get Azhazr released, Sheikh and three others kidnapped three Britons and an American in 1994; the four were later released. Sheikh was arrested and imprisoned, but was then released in 1999 along with Azhar, in exchange for release of the hijacked Indian airplane.

While in jail in India, Sheikh had numerous visits from a "British diplomat," according to the Los Angeles Times, which wrote: "The large ledger where the names of Tihar jail visitors are registered lists nine meetings between Sheikh, his lawyer and a British diplomat identified as 'Mr. Greenhall.'"

The London Times reported that while Sheikh was in jail in India, British intelligence secretly offered him amnesty and the ability to live in London as a free man, if he would reveal his links to al-Qaeda -- an offer Sheikh supposedly refused.

Nonetheless, after Sheikh was released in the hostage swap deal engineered by Dawood Ibrahim in December, 1999, he was allowed to travel freely to Britain, where he visited his parents in Britain in 2000 and again in early 2001, according to accounts in both the Indian and British press. Also, during this period he is believed to have wired money to the 9/11 hijackers.

Although Sheikh was sentenced in a secret court proceeding in July 2002 to hang for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, he is still apparently quite alive. At the time of the Daniel Pearl kidnapping, the Wall Street Journal reporter was investigating various facets of the Pakistani ISI intelligence service and its ties to terrorism. He was also preparing a story on Dawood Ibrahim.