Pakistan confirms stay of execution for Briton

Pakistan’s president has granted a stay of execution for a British-Pakistani man who was set to hang next month for the killing of a taxi driver 18 years ago, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said today.

Mirza Tahir Hussain, now 35, was acquitted of murder by the high court 10 years ago, but an Islamic court imposed a death penalty two years later.

Rights groups have protested that his trial was unfair, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week urged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to reconsider the sentence.

Amjad Hussain, currently in Pakistan to lobby his brother’s case, said the Pakistani high commissioner to Britain had phoned him yesterday to say that Hussain had been granted an indefinite stay of execution.

That was confirmed by Imran Gardezi, a spokesman at the high commission in London.

However, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Musharraf had only extended a current stay of execution, that expires June 1, for another month to allow the two sides in the case to achieve a reconciliation.