The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday, while dismissing the appeals against his acquittal, ordered the release of Al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who has spent over 18 years, in the murder and kidnapping case of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, reports PTI. 

Pearl, the South Aisa bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and killed when he was in Pakistan, investigating a story in 2002 on the links between the ISI and Al-Qaeda. The case had grabbed international headlines.

In the murder and kidnapping case of Pearl, 38, Sheikh, along with his three aides, were aides were convicted in Karachi in 2002. 

Pearl was beheaded three years after Sheikh, Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar were released by India in 1999 in exchange for nearly 150 passengers hijacked in Indian Airlines Flight 814. Sheikh was arrested in India in 1994 for kidnapping Western tourists but he was never charged.  

Also Read | Omar Sheikh: From private schoolboy to militant kidnapper

Pakistan’s apex dismissed the Sindh government’s appeal against Sindh High Court’s (SHC) order to overturn the conviction of Sheikh in the Daniel Pearl murder case. 

A three-judge bench of the SC led by Justice Mushir Alam also directed Sheikh’s release on Thursday by 2-3 majority and upheld the SHC order, the Al-Qaeda’s terrorist’s lawyer Mahmood Sheikh said, reports PTI. 

A two-judge bench of Sindh High Court last year in April had commuted the death sentence of 46-year-old Sheikh to seven years imprisonment and had also acquitted his three aides. 

The Sindh government and family of Pearl filed petitions in the apex court, challenging the high court verdict, reports PTI.