The courts ordered the release, on 26 December, of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who was serving a seven-year sentence (following the commutation of the original death penalty) for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Sheikh had originally been released from prison in 1999 as part of the negotiated ending to the hijacking of Indian Airline flight IC814. The original sentence was for the kidnapping of foreign nationals. The other two prisoners released due to the hijacking were Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Masood Azhar, the latter going on to form Jaish-e-Mohammed.