A Pakistani court has released a suspect in the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl because there wasn’t enough evidence to hold him.
Qari Hashim, 50, was arrested in 2007 in connection with Pearl’s kidnapping and
execution in 2002, NBC News reported.
Hashim’s lawyer told NBC that he was "perfectly happy" with the verdict, and added that he wasn’t sure why his client had been arrested, though he conceded that Hashim had "been an absconder for years."
BBC News said Hashim was set to be released immediately.
Mohammad Omar Saeed Sheikh received the death sentence in connection with Pearl's kidnapping, and three others were sentenced to life in prison, BBC said.
Pearl was the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. His friends and family established the
Danny Pearl Foundation in his memory with the goal to promote cross-cultural understanding "using music and words to address the root causes of the hatred that took his life. The book 'At Home in the World' published in June 2002, features 50 of Danny’s best articles, illustrating his curiosity, humor, fairness, and his love of humanity," the organization’s website said.
Pearl was kidnapped just months after 9/11, and stories of his murder were covered extensively by the media, many of the reporters his friends. One of his close friends and one of the last reporters to see him alive,
Asra Q. Nomani, wrote in the Washingtonian a detailed report of what happened to Pearl and also of the struggles of his wife, who told him just two days before he was kidnapped that she was having a baby boy.
Nomani said Sheikh, along with killing Pearl, was a "self-described architect" of the World Trade Center attacks.
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