The family of slain journalist Daniel Pearl said the Pakistani Supreme Court judges who last month ruled to free his killers harbor anti-American bias associated with conspiracy theories around Pearl’s death.

Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl’s father, told The Forward that the family believes two members of the three-judge panel that voted to free Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh are “anti-U.S.,” a sentiment that Pearl said was associated with a belief that the United States fabricated his son’s murder.

Daniel Pearl was a Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped by terrorists and beheaded while on assignment in Karachi in 2002. Pearl’s Jewish faith is widely believed to have played a role in his murder. Three accomplices were acquitted by a lower court last April.