KARACHI, Pakistan - A Pakistani high court acquitted a bomb suspect, who had been put on death row for allegedly masterminding a series of suicide bombings on Shiite mosques.

Gul Hasan, an alleged member of the banned sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had been sentenced to death in 2004 by an anti-terrorism court for the mosque bombings that year in the port city of Karachi in which 80 died, the BBC reported.

For the past decade, Pakistan has been wracked by deadly Shiite-Sunni violence. The BBC report said the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, suspected to have links with the al-Qaida, has figured in almost all the attacks on Shiite targets.

The high court in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, ruled Monday the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Hasan. The government was expected to appeal the ruling to Supreme Court.

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