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KARACHI, Feb 3 (AFP) - Investigators in Pakistan on Saturday appeared no closer to locating US journalist Daniel Pearl 11 days after his abduction, despite arresting several people and ruling out his death.

The Wall Street Journal correspondent disappeared in the southern port city of Karachi on January 23 after telling his wife he was going to meet the leader of a little known militant Islamic organisation.

A hitherto unknown group, which has sent a series of e-mails with photos of Pearl in captivity, had threatened to kill him first by Thursday then by Friday.

Police have dismissed as a hoax an e-mail sent within hours of the Friday deadline's expiry claiming that he had been killed and dumped in a Karachi graveyard. An exhaustive search of the city's cemeteries found no trace of Pearl.

However US officials in Pakistan had not yet determined whether the e-mail, which carried no photo to substantiate the claim of Pearl's death, was a hoax, a US embassy spokesman in Islamabad said.

Asked if US officials here were still hopeful that Pearl, 38, was alive, he said: "I think everybody is."

Police have also dismissed another e-mail sent Saturday, also without a photo, claiming that Pearl "is (may be) alive" as a hoax. They claim a teenager in the eastern city of Lahore had admitted sending it.

"Police have arrested one person in Lahore after tracking his e-mail and he has confessed that the last e-mail was sent by him," an intelligence officer in Karachi told AFP.

The officer, requesting anonymity, said police were treating only those e-mails carrying photos of Pearl as genuine.

Police in Islamabad detained two people overnight for questioning over Pearl, the capital's police chief Nasir Khan Durrani said.

"The Sindh government had received some information about them and they wanted a verification from us. They have been included in the investigation," Durrani told AFP, refusing to give details.

Several others have been detained in Karachi. A detainee held in relation to a telephone call to the US embassy demanding a two million dollar ransom for Pearl had been released.

The Wall Street Journal said Saturday it believed Pearl was still alive, and pleaded with his captors to resume dialogue and to produce a photo proving that he had not been killed. 

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