Cut them off underneath the plastic with some good sidecutters - if you can't get in there then cut the plastic instead - and then desolder each pin individually.
- Then you can heat the pins from the top, or longer end, and just pull them out with a pair of pliers.
wish you had posted this a day earlier Nino, I got the job done, am not real happy with the way it looks, but it works............BUT it didnt fix the lamp matrix issue