A court in Pakistan on Thursday overturned the death sentence and murder conviction of a British-born militant for the 2002 slaying of journalist Daniel Pearl.

A lawyer for the militant, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, said his client’s sentence had been reduced to seven years in prison for the charge of kidnapping, according to Agence France-Presse.

Sheikh was expected to be released from prison after being held there since 2002.

Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded in Karachi. A video of Pearl’s decapitation was delivered to the US consulate there.

Sheikh was sentenced to death in 2002.

A report released by the Pearl Project at Georgetown University has claimed that the wrong men were convicted for Pearl’s murder.

Instead, the investigation says Pearl was murdered by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

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

With wires