Briton Held Over Pearl Kidnap

Pakistani police have arrested the British-born prime suspect of the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, better known as Sheikh Omar, was picked up in the city of Lahore this morning.

Karachi's police chief, Tariq Jamil, confirmed to Reuters that Sheikh had been arrested and was being taken to Karachi.

Pearl disappeared in Karachi on January 23 as he tried to make contact with Islamic radical groups while investigating possible links between the the alleged shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Sheikh, the 27-year-old son of a clothes merchant from Wanstead in east London and a former student at the London School of Economics, has a long record of Islamic militancy.

He was jailed for five years in India in 1994 after the kidnap of three Britons and an American tourist. He was released five years later together with two prominent militants in exchange for 155 passengers hijacked on an Indian airliner and taken to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

For a while Sheikh kept a low profile, disappearing from view with his wife and new-born son.

But he has been linked with the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US.

Indian police have accused him of involvement in the transfer of $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, one of the alleged hijackers involved in the attacks.

Earlier today police said they had new leads into the kidnapping of Pearl and had detained two more suspects in the southern city of Karachi overnight.

Another three men accused by police of sending emails that announced the abduction of Pearl appeared today before a special anti-terrorism court, where they were formally charged with kidnapping.

They were remanded in custody for an additional 14 days.