Pakistan Set to Hang Acquitted British Man

Amjad Hussain shows photograph, of his brother Tahir Mirza Hussain, left, sits with his father Mirza Fazal Hussain holding his nephew outside a court in Rawalpindi, taken in 1993 in Islamabad Saturday May 20, 2006. After spending half his life in a grim Pakistani jail, the British-Pakistani man Tahir Mirza Hussain is due to hang on his 36th birthday for killing a taxi driver _ although a court acquitted him 10 years ago. Amnesty International has called for a retrial, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett have urged President Musharraf to reconsider Hussain's sentence. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash) (B.k.bangash - AP)

Pakistan's police and judiciary are rarely noted for their integrity, and legal experts say having both secular and Sharia law at work only allows for more abuse.

"It's a basic and fundamental flaw with our criminal justice system," said Hina Jilani, vice-chair of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "There should be just one set of laws."

The dueling jurisdictions have come into play in other high-profile cases, including the prosecution of the attackers of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani women who was gang-raped on the orders of a village council in 2002 over her younger brother's alleged affair with a woman from a higher caste family. The Supreme Court is still deliberating whether the case falls under the jurisdiction of a secular or Islamic court.

Former military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq introduced Shariah law to Pakistan in 1979, two decades after the Islamic nation was born. His controversial Hudood Ordinance, which covers offenses such as adultery, rape and theft, requires four male witnesses to prosecute a rape.

Hussain's case also falls under the Hudood Ordinance. His only hope now is presidential intervention or reconciliation with the dead taxi driver's ethnic Pashtun family through a settlement.

Amjad Hussain said his late father offered financial compensation back in 1990 but it was rejected. The deceased's family have since refused the mediation efforts of a prominent Islamic cleric. Amjad Hussain claims the family, which could not be reached for comment, has threatened to kill his brother if he is released.

"To them, it's a blood feud," he said.

Amjad Hussain shook his head as he recounted how his brother has grayed in prison, suffered psychological problems and become resigned to his fate _ finding solace in Islam, in whose name he's been jailed.

"Sometimes he just feels like getting this over and done with. He once told me don't bother to try and help, because whatever God ordains is going to happen," Amjad Hussain said. "That scares me."