Mirza Tahir Hussain

Mirza Tahir Hussain (born 1 June 1970) is a British man released on 17 November 2006 after spending 18 years on death row in Pakistan for the murder of a taxicab driver named Jamshed Khan in 1988, a crime which he says he committed in self-defence, as Khan pulled out a gun and tried to sexually assault him. In the ensuing struggle, the gun went off, fatally injuring Khan. Mirza was held in the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi. His representative is Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West.

Conviction

His conviction was quashed by the Pakistani Supreme Court, but he was then found guilty by The Federal Sharia Court. He was due to be hanged on 1 June 2006, but this was delayed supposedly due to clashes with a scheduled visit to the country from Prince Charles. A new date of 3 August 2006 was delayed until 1 September 2006, reportedly to give Mr Hussain's family time to negotiate blood money with the relatives of the victim - a practice under Islamic law. The execution was again delayed, and set for 1 October 2006 at 0500 BST. However, the execution was again delayed, reportedly because it is the holy month of Ramadan.

In spite of a clemency plea by Prince Charles, Mirza was initially given only a two month stay of execution with the new date for execution set for 31 December 2006. However, intervention by Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan resulted in commutation to a life sentence. Under Pakistani law, this equated to a 14 year term. Since Mirza had already served 18...
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