HYDERABAD- One of the suspects of American journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder case was freed by the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Hyderabad today.

Syed Hashim was one of the alleged suspects involved in kidnapping and murdering Pearl, and was arrested in 2008. Newly-posted presiding officer of ATC Abdul Ghafoor Memon buried the case citing lack of evidence.

Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal, was abducted and killed in Karachi on January 23, 2002. A special anti-terrorism court had awarded death sentence to the mastermind, Ahmed Omer Sheikh, while the co-accused, Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Shaikh Adil, were handed life imprisonment in 2002, after they were found guilty of kidnapping and beheading the foreign journalist.