Extremist Accused of Beheading a U.S. Journalist Freed in Pakistan

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday acquitted and discharged Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, an Islamist accused of beheading a U.S. journalist, Daniel Pearl in 2002.

A panel of three judges of Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release of the accused, a government lawyer said.

“By a majority of two to one, they have acquitted all the accused persons and ordered their release,” a provincial attorney-general, Salman Talibuddin, told Reuters in a text message.

Sheikh, the main suspect in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, had received the death penalty, prior to an appeal to the apex court.