8 of the 10 men accused in the shooting Malala Yousafzai have been secretly acquitted
Several media outlets reported Friday that eight of the ten suspected Taliban members convicted of targeting Yousafzai and shooting her in the head on a school bus in 2012, have been secretly acquitted and released from prison.
The suspects stood trial in April, and reportedly confessed to the ambush.
All 10 were given 25-year prison sentences.
Mother Jones writer Gabrielle Canon reported Friday that the Daily Mirror tried unsuccessfully to locate the 10 prisoners. A court later "published new findings that revealed only two had in fact been convicted and the rest had been quietly released due to "lack of evidence."
Yousafzai has been an outspoken critic of oppressive regimes that seek to marginalize women. In 2009, she famously declared the importance of education, shamed gender-specific policies that forced young girls to hide their books "to pretend they were not students," and vowed to stand up to the abuses of the Taliban in Pakistan.
She was shot in the head as she sat on a bus full of students in 2012, but survived and recovered. Malala went on to publish a memoir, and was awarded a Nobel Peace prize in 2014.