Pakistani court overturns conviction of man sentenced for Wall Street Journal reporter's murder

A Pakistani court overturned the murder conviction of Omar Saeed Sheikh for killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Sheikh's sentence, formerly the death penalty, has been reduced to seven years in prison. He has been imprisoned since 2002.

Defense attorneys challenged the evidence used against Sheikh in his 2002 trial, calling it “concocted.” Sheikh was initially charged with counts of terrorism, murder, and kidnapping — those counts have now been downgraded to just kidnapping.

The state prosecutor’s office, which had requested the court uphold the original charges, may appeal the overturning of Sheikh’s conviction.

Pearl, who was in Pakistan shortly after the September 2001 attacks working on a story about religious extremism, was kidnapped and beheaded in the southern city of Karachi in January of 2002. A tape of Pearl’s murder was circulated online, bringing to light the extensive jihadist network in Pakistan.

Sheikh was an extremist, who was radicalized as a student at the London School of Economics.

Pearl’s kidnapping and murder were not the first offenses against westerners with which Sheikh had been involved. In the mid-90s he was jailed for his participation in the kidnapping of a group of Western tourists in Kashmir.