January 23 in History
2002 – US journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered
Daniel Pearl (October 1963 – February 2002) was an American journalist who was kidnapped on this day in 2002 and later beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan. Pearl was working as the South Asia Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, based in Mumbai, India, and was kidnapped when he went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between British citizen Richard Reid (known as the “shoe bomber”) and Al-Qaeda.
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, was sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl’s abduction and murder in 2002 but his conviction was overturned by a Pakistani court in the summer of 2020. In March 2007, at a closed military hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a member of Al-Qaeda, claimed that he had personally beheaded Pearl. Researchers have also connected Al-Qaeda member Saif al-Adel with the kidnapping.
-Wikipedia