Thaindian News

Islamabad, June 27 (IANS) A Pakistani lawyer who claims to represent Sarabjit Singh, the Indian prisoner on death row for 18 years, says he will appeal to President Asif Ali Zardari to either pardon him or commute the death sentence to a life term.
“Yes, I can confirm I will make an appeal to President Zardari to either pardon Sarabit Singh or to convert the death sentence to life imprisonment,” lawyer Awais Qureshi said at a press conference at which Punjab Additional Advocate General Rana Abdul Hameed was also present.

“Mutual trust between India and Pakistan would be strengthened if my client is pardoned or his sentence is reduced to life imprisonment,” Qureshi added.

He also maintained that that Sarabjit was innocent and was not involved in any terrorist act.

Sarabjit has been accused of triggering bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan in 1990 that left 14 people dead. He was sentenced to death in 1991 and has since then been on death row.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court Wednesday rejected Sarabjit’s mercy petition after his lawyer failed to appear in the court despite being specifically directed to do so. India hoped Pakistan would take a “sympathetic and humanitarian” view of the case.

The court verdict was delivered by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Raja Fayyaz.

In New Delhi, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna acknowledged that the prisoner’s fate had touched a nerve in India. “Sarabjit Singh’s case has touched sentiments of many people in India who have been following this case,” he told reporters.

Krishna said India has appealed - and will continue to appeal - to Pakistan to remove Sarabjit Singh from death row.

“We have consistently urged the government of Pakistan to take a sympathetic and humanitarian view in this case. It is our hope that they will find it possible to do so,” he added.

After the Pakistani Supreme Court delivered its verdict, it became evident that there had been a miscarriage of justice.

The lawyer who was to defend him said he could not do so as he had been appointed a law officer in Punjab province. He said he had asked a colleague to appear on his behalf but he failed to so.

Sarabjit’s family contests the death sentence, saying he had strayed into Pakistan in a drunken state in 1990 and had nothing to do with the blasts.

On March 9, 2006, a two-member Supreme Court bench had dismissed Sarabjit’s petition against the sentence.

Sarabjit, who is lodged in Lahore’s high-security Kot Lakhpat jail, was to have been hanged April 1, 2008, but the authorities put this off after newly-installed Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani sought to examine the issue.