Justice and British Citizen’s Imminent Hanging
By Siddique Malik
Louisville, KY

Eighteen years ago, Mirza Tahir Hussain, a British-born teenager of Pakistani descent arrived at the Islamabad airport on his way to the village from where his parents had migrated to the UK. He hired a taxi for this road journey. On the way, the taxi driver tried to rape him, and a fight ensued. The taxi driver’s gun went off, killing him. Hussain, drove the car with the body in it, to the nearest police station, and told this story to the police. He was arrested for murder. Subsequently, the courts found him guilty of murder and he was given life-imprisonment. Later, his sentence was turned into death sentence. His judicial appeals have been rejected, and at the age of 36, he will be hanged at the end of Ramadan unless his plea for mercy is accepted by the President of Pakistan.
The circumstances clearly reveal that Hussain had no motivation or premeditation to kill the taxi driver, and the story of this death being the result of an accident or self-defense, seemed credible. Also, Hussian had no criminal record in the UK. So, why would he suddenly turn into a killer in a foreign country? Besides, what happened to the concept of the benefit of doubt? Clearly, this was a case in which this concept should have been invoked.
The courts in their wisdom and because of legal technicalities may not have been able to take the mitigating circumstances into consideration, but this is exactly the situation for which Pakistan’s constitution gives the president the power to commute a death sentence.
Even in those judicial systems in which, an accused is considered innocent until proven guilty, the head of the executive, while considering death-row inmates’ pleas for mercy, takes a deep look at the mitigating circumstances that the courts may not have considered for any reason. In Pakistan, where an accused is considered guilty until proven innocent, there should be tremendous burden on the head of the executive to take mitigating circumstances into account, while considering condemned prisoners’ mercy petitions.
Recently, President Musharraf said that he was not going to stop this execution because he was not a dictator and thus did not want to interfere with a judicial judgment. I beg to differ with the president. If he ignores these crying mitigating circumstances, he will prove himself to be a dictator. On the other hand, exercising his constitutional powers to stop a punishment from becoming irreversible will prove that he is aware of the responsibilities that the Constitution places on him, and thus is not a dictator. Using constitutional powers can never be an affront to the courts because courts basically protect and uphold the constitution.

Mr. President, for the sake of fairness and Pakistan’s image, please commute this death sentence to the time already served (18 years of agony for someone whose ordeal started when he was 18, should be enough punishment for an act of self-defense), and allow the man to return to the UK.
Also, for the sake of equality, fairness and justice, all those who have been sentenced to die because the courts would or could not take into consideration the mitigating circumstances surrounding the murder for which they were convicted, should be granted clemency. In a judicial vacuum, this is one of the bounden duties of the head of state. If we err, we must err on the side of life, not death.

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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