Sunni Tehreek activists rally outside the High Court in Islamabad (Credit: ucanews.com)
Hundreds of Islamist supporters rallied outside the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday for the appeal of Mumtaz Qadri, who was condemned to death for killing Punjab governor, Salman Taseer — a critic of the country’s blasphemy law.
Qadri, one of Taseer's bodyguards, shot the governor for speaking out against the controversial law after a Catholic woman was handed a death sentence for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, a charge she denies.
Taseer met the accused, Asia Bibi, after the court’s sentence and persuaded her to file a mercy plea. He then promised to send the petition to the president with favorable recommendations. Six weeks later, he was gunned down in an Islamabad market.
In October 2011, Qadri was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court. The judge who handed down the sentence was subsequently sent abroad along with his family on the recommendation of intelligence agencies amid threats to his life from extremists.
As the two-judge bench of the High Court began Tuesday's hearing, hundreds of supporters belonging to Pakistan Sunni Tehreek gathered outside calling for Qadri’s release.
They also denounced reported plans by the government to send Qadri’s case to military courts for a speedy trial. “If [the] Mumtaz Qadri case is sent to military courts, millions of faithful Muslims will take to the streets,” warned a cleric leading the rally.
However, soon after the hearing began the judges ruled that the case could not be heard in a military court since a lower court had already passed sentence.
According to local media reports, a legal team of more than 50 lawyers headed by a former chief justice of Lahore High Court defended Qadri.
Last week, the English daily newspaper Dawn reported that important documents related to the Salman Taseer murder case mysteriously disappeared from the office of the attorney-general in the Islamabad High Court after Qadri's appeal was fixed for hearing.
The court issued a notice to Taseer’s legal heirs and adjourned the hearing until Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Christian activists called for Qadri's conviction to be upheld and for a review of the controversial blasphemy law.
“It is an obscene law and is being used as a tool of persecution and to settle scores that have nothing to do with religion," said Sardar Mushtaq Gill, a Christian lawyer.
If Qadri's appeal is successful then the risk of attacks on religious minorities and their supporters would be increased, he said.
The appeal is also expected to test the state’s resolve in fighting the rising tide of militancy and extremism.
In December last year, the Pakistani government announced a national plan to counter terrorism and extremism after Taliban gunmen killed 150 people, mostly children, in a military-run school in Peshawar.
It also lifted a six-year moratorium on executions and set up military courts to try terrorists.
