Daniel Pearl beheading: Suspect released by Pakistan anti -terror court

US journalist Pearl was kidnapped in 2002

(EPA)

One of the men suspected of being involved in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl has been released by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan.

Mr Pearl, who was the South Asia bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in Karachi in 2002.

Authorities were sent a video allegedly showing his beheading and a decapitated body was subsequently found in May. DNA tests later proved the body was that of Mr Pearl.

Qari Hashim was arrested in connection with his death in 2007.

He was being held in Hyderabad, a jail in the southern city in Pakistan, during his trial until the Pakistani anti terrorist Court ordered his release on Friday.

Mr Hashim’s lawyers say he was acquitted because of a lack of evidence, the BBC reports.

Court official Abdul Samih told the BBC that Justice Abdul Ghafoor Memon ordered Mr Hashim's immediate release.

Omar Sheik, the man convicted of masterminding the murder, was sentenced to death in 2002. Three other men received life prison sentences in the same year.