Pak's SC orders release of a militant convicted of beheading US journalist Daniel Pearl

Pakistan’s Supreme Court yesterday ordered the release of a militant convicted of beheading U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. Pearl, 38, was kidnapped when he was investigating Islamist militants in Karachi after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. 

Later Mr. Pearl was beheaded and a video of his beheading grabbed headlines around



the world. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was the main suspect in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Pearl, has been acquitted by a panel of three judges.

A Pakistani high court last year commuted the death penalty of the British-born Sheikh into life sentence and acquitted three other co-accused persons citing lack of evidence.