COURT FREES MAN CONVICTED OF BEHEADING PEARL

KARACHI Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of an Islamist convicted of beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl, a decision that has left his family in “complete shock,” lawyers said.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was the main suspect in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, was acquitted by a panel of three judges. Sheik and his co-accused are to be released immediately if they are not required in any other case, the head of the court panel, Justice Mushir Alam, said in a court order.

A high court last year commuted the death penalty of the British-born Sheikh into a life sentence and acquitted his three co-accused.