By IPS Correspondents
KARACHI, Aug 11 2006 (IPS)

Having endured seven trials over the last 18 years, with all legal avenues exhausted and a clemency plea to the president of Pakistan rejected, Mirza Tahir Hussain, a British citizen, still maintains his innocence as he awaits execution September 1.

His brother, Amjad Hussain, waits for a miracle to save Tahir, as he is known, who is charged with robbing and killing a taxi driver in 1988 when Tahir was just 18 years old.

Not once has Amjad given up hope. “No, never! I endeavour to see this through and in God I put my trust. I will stand by him no matter what the odds and would go to ends of the earth to save his life,” Amjad wrote in an email to IPS.

“It’s a long nightmare that never seems to end for the family,” Amjad wrote, as he described the ordeal of his younger brother, now 36, whom he has been able to visit only four times in the past 18 years. The last time they met, two months ago, was a shock for Amjad.

“He’s been through hell and has died many times given the torment. He’s aged rapidly, is grey all over and looks like an old man,” he said. “Our lives are on hold. It’s affected us physically, psychologically and financially. The emotional scars run deep. My father died of his sorrows three years ago of a broken heart and my mother cries all the time. Her anguish is unbearable for me.”

The hanging of Tahir Hussain, a British Muslim from Leeds who also carries Pakistan citizenship, has been postponed twice – first in June, then in August – to give his family more time to save his life and as international pressure mounts for President Pervez Musharraf to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. Musharraf, according to press reports, has asked the families of both the accused and the deceased to find a solution – a common remedy under Shar’ia law is for the defendant’s family to pay compensation.

In the last few days, two village councils, comprising scholars, religious leaders and elders, have convened to try to convince the family of the taxi driver to show mercy. Sohbat Khan, the taxi driver’s uncle, said it is not possible.

“I just want to ask you one thing: Why are the various media and even officials coming in the way of justice? Why can’t you accept the judgement given by the high court? Can you not feel our hurt,” he asked in a telephone interview with IPS. “We may be poor, but we have hearts too. Why are you denying us justice?”

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken a personal interest in the case. Senior British officials, including Hillary Benn, Britain’s International Development Secretary, and British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, too, have appealed for mercy. Human rights organisations like Amnesty International, Islamic Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Watch have condemned the death sentence served to Tahir Hussain.

For the past 18 years the family of the taxi driver has only demanded execution and refused compensation allowed under Islamic and Pakistani law, though they have been offered 18,000 pounds (33,500 U.S. dollars) by Tahir Hussain’s family.

The idea of giving the power of life or death to the dead man’s family makes no sense to the Amjad, raised in Leeds, England. “I think it’s repulsive to hand over the life of any person to family members for them to lynch or reprieve. Families can never make sound judgement given the overwhelming passions involved in such cases. Why have courts, judiciary and laws?”

Moreover, human rights advocates point out that compensation laws are discriminatory because they favour the wealthy.

In December 1988, at the age of 18, Tahir Hussain, who had joined the Territorial Army, travelled to Pakistan to see his family village of Bhubar in District Chakwal.

During the drive to the small village, according to the Tahir Hussain, the taxi driver, Jamshed Khan, stopped the car and tried to physically and sexually assault Hussain at gunpoint. A scuffle ensued and the gun went off eventually killing the driver.

Hussain, who had been in Pakistan only one day, drove the taxi to the first police station he could find, handed over the gun and related the episode. He was immediately arrested.

Sohbat Khan disputed Tahir’s account. He believes Tahir killed his nephew in order to steal his taxi.

In 1989 Tahir was tried and sentenced to death. Three years later an appeal court found serious discrepancies and, after a retrial in 1994, gave sentenced Tahir to life imprisonment. When his appeal was heard in the Lahore High Court (LHC) in 1996, he was acquitted of all charges.

A week later, his case was passed on to the Federal Shariat Court, a religious court, where he was convicted of highway robbery. The Shariat Court then imposed the death penalty by a vote of 2:1. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling. Last year, Musharraf denied clemency.

As the day nears for Hussain to die, Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, a former Supreme Court judge, said the only chance left is if the president exercises the “unbridled power” bestowed upon him under constitution, wherein he can reprieve, pardon, remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority. But the president already has rejected pleas for mercy.

Human rights groups, too, are pressuring Musharraf to reconsider.

“President Musharraf should immediately quash the death sentence because this punishment is inhumane, and because there are such huge concerns about the safety of the conviction,” Sarah Green, Press Office, Amnesty International UK, wrote in an email to IPS. “The Islamic provision under which he was tried requires that the death penalty should only be imposed if reliable eyewitness accounts or a confession to the court are submitted. In this case, neither was obtained.”

Khan, however, said that justice “should be accepted. Why are we asked over and over again to give the motives behind the murder?”

A frustrated Amjad, continues to fight to save his brother.

“For an offence that has no eye witness, for a crime he didn’t commit. It belies logic and reason and in short ‘humanity’. The ‘system’ and country has failed him,” says a frustrated Amjad Hussain.

Mirza Tahir Hussain has made international headlines because he is a British national. But there are many unfortunate ones – more than 7,400 men and 36 women – who remain voiceless, spending half their lives languishing in Pakistan’s prisons waiting to be executed. Not many have brothers like Amjad who have persevered and mustered support.

“To me a convict in a death cell dies every day,” said I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

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