Part two of the interview with Mirza Tahir Hussein in Times, focuses on life on Rawalpindi's death row and the campaign for his release. Today's instalment also has a video interview and pictures of Hussein with his family.
Click here for links to part one of the Times' interview and previous posts on Hussein.
Mirza Tahir Hussain, the British citizen sentenced to death by a sharia court in Pakistan after being cleared in a criminal case, has told his story to the Times; not surprisingly since the Times played a major role in highlighting the injustice of Hussain's case. Indeed, previously the Times managed to interview Hussain in Rawalpindi jail.
The first instalment of the most recent interview deals with the Hussain's arrest and imprisonment, culminating in the original trial.
A second item gives some background on executions in Pakistan.
Previous coverage on Crumbling Spires.
The Pakistani newspaper, Dawn reports that the family of the murder victim in the Mirza Tahir Hussain case is to appeal against the pardon.
Family members of a taxi-driver killed 18 years ago by a British national have expressed outrage at President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to commute his death sentence and said they would challenge the decision in the Supreme Court. President Musharraf commuted Mirza Tahir Hussain’s death sentence on Wednesday following a well-orchestrated campaign by his family, friends and politicians in Britain. The move came after a series of negotiations by Pakistani officials to persuade the victim’s family to reach a settlement failed.The British High Commission is refusing to comment but, according to Reuters India, a British diplomat has confirmed that Hussein has already left Pakistan. Just as well, perhaps. I have an uneasy suspicion that, given Musharraf's political problems with Islamic extremists, we have not heard the last of this case.
“It is an unfair and unlawful decision,” Abdul Ghani, father of the taxi-driver, Jamshed Khan, told Dawn. “Not only all the courts in the country had upheld the death sentence but even the president had turned down the mercy petition of the accused earlier this year.”
Mr Ghani said in the present situation all he could do was to … seek justice from the apex [supreme - HB] court.
Advocate Malik Rab Nawaz told Dawn that the taxi-driver’s relative Sobhat Khan had contacted him regarding the appeal and added that they would contend in the appeal that the president did not have powers to commute the death sentence and it was the prerogative only of the heirs of the deceased to pardon the killer or reach a compromise.
The Times reports that Tahir Mirza Hussain has been released from prison in Pakistan. Last month, a Times reporter spoke to Hussain.
The BBC and the Independent also have the story.
Update 2 18.11.06@14:42
The Yorkshire Post has said it will give the story full coverage tomorrow but there is nothing online, as yet.
The regional BBC programme, Look North currently has a video report, which will probably be gone tomorrow.
Mirza Tahir Hussain is the British citizen sentenced to death in Pakistan by a sharia court after being found not guilty by a criminal court. Now, following a behind the scenes intervention by Prince Charles, President Musharraf has commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. According to The Nation:
Musharraf commuted the sentence under Article 45 of the Constitution of Pakistan that states: “The President shall have power to grant pardon, reprieve and respite and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by a court, tribunal or authority”.The BBC says that Hussain, who has now spent 18 years in jail, could now be eligible for release. The Times reports that:
The decision to show mercy comes shortly after the Prince of Wales took the rare step of appealing to President Musharraf for Hussain’s life when he visited the country last month. The request was reported to have come in an informal moment as the two men walked to the Prince’s car after their official meeting in Islamabad on October 30. The formal announcement, expected today, will be in time for Tony Blair’s arrival next week.The "informal moment" is a clever propaganda touch but a British embassy official let slip to an Asian journalist that negotiations have been going on over Hussain's future.
The case of Mirza Tahir Hussain, the British citizen acquitted of murder by the Pakistani High Court and then re-tried and sentenced to death under Sharia, looks as though it might be slowly moving towards some sort of resolution. The Guardian reports that,
Prison officials in Pakistan said his execution had been delayed from November 1 for two months after the Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened in his plight. According to some reports, the Pakistani government were also consulting legal experts and considering the possibility of a pardon for Hussain.Although a pardon would have been the correct response to this double jeopardy miscarriage of justice, Musharraf is in a difficult position. As regular readers of this blog will know, the President has serious problems with local Islamic extremists in Waziristan and Balochistan, and with rogue elements within the ISI (Pakistani Intelligence Services) and maybe even the army itself. It is a particularly bad time, therefore, for the President to inflame matters by over-riding Sharia Law.
His brother Amjad said: "In postponing the execution President (Pervez) Musharraf has clearly recognised the strength of public feeling over this case but the correct response would have been for him to pardon my brother or commute his sentence, not to merely postpone this barbaric punishment, presumably in the hope that the fuss will die down.
The Times provides a glimpse of possible things to come in Europe under Sharia "law". In Pakistan, Mirza-Tahir Hussain was found guilty of murder in a case involving highway robbery but after a lengthy legal process,
... the High Court acquitted him. Before Hussain was freed, however, the High Court referred his case to a Sharia court that claims jurisdiction over cases of highway robbery. In that trial in 1998, one of the judges said that the visiting Briton had been framed by police, who had lied in court. But Hussain was given the death penalty by a two-to-one margin and the country’s Sharia Supreme Court rejected subsequent appeals.Having been freed by the legal system, Hussain was re-arrested by religious police and is going to be executed for a crime for which he has been already legally tried and found not guilty.
