An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has acquitted one of the people accused of murdering US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Qari Hashim was arrested in 2005, some three years after the main accused were convicted for the abduction and killing of Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter.

Hashim's lawyer, Sher Mohammad Leghari, is quoted by the news agency AFP as saying the prosecution had no proof of his client's guilt.

Pearl, 38, was the WSJ's South Asia bureau chief when he was abducted and beheaded in Karachi while researching a story about Islamist militants.

A graphic video showing Pearl's decapitation was delivered to the US consulate in the city nearly a month later.

The British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to death while three other men received life sentences. All four filed appeals, which are still pending.

In January 2011, a report released by the Pearl project at Georgetown university claimed that the wrong men were convicted for Pearl's murder.

Its investigation, led by Pearl's friend and former WSJ colleague Asra Nomani and a Georgetown University professor, claimed the reporter was murdered by Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who has confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks.

He was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and is being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Source: AFP via The Nation