A decoder performs: computing (S501) a value (i,j) of a performance-improvement metric for each kernel Ki,j; and sorting (S502) the kernels in a list in decreasing order of the values (i,j). The decoder then performs a beliefs propagation iterative process as follows: updating (S503) output beliefs for the W top kernels of the list , and propagating said output beliefs as input beliefs of the neighbour kernels of said W top kernels; updating (S504) output beliefs for each neighbour kernel of said W top kernels following update of their input beliefs, and re-computing (S505) the performance-improvement metric value (i,j) for each said neighbour kernel; setting (S505) the performance-improvement metric for said W top kernels to a null value; and re-ordering (S506) the kernels in the list . Then, the decoder repeats the beliefs propagation iterative process until a stop condition is met.