Muslim extremism and the war on terrorism.
President Bush said Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf had "made a bold decision for his people, and peace, after September 11th," when he "chose to fight the terrorists," despite several assassination attempts on his life.
He made the comments Saturday, March 4, shortly after two Muslim seminarians in Pakistan’s Punjab province were reportedly found guilty of murdering a Pakistani Christian, who died 22 months ago after being tortured to convert to Islam.
Before a courtroom packed with Islamic madrassa students and police, Judge Javed Iqbal Warraich sentenced Maulvi Ghulam Rasool and Mohammed Tayyab to 25 years in prison for their part in torturing and killing Catholic university student Javed Anjum, Compass Direct news agency said.
PLEASED WITH VERDICT
Prosecution lawyer Khalil Tahir Sindhu was quoted as saying that he was pleased with the verdict, but that he would appeal for the sentence to be changed to the death penalty.
The move was seen as an attempt by authorities to show they are cracking down on Muslim extremism, following several violent attacks in recent weeks against churches and individual Christians following the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in European media.
However the trial was apparently overshadowed by threats against family members. Despite the presence of dozens of police, Judge Warraich ordered Anjum’s father, Pervez Masih, to leave the courtroom for his own safety.
Police have accompanied Masih and Sindhu to every hearing since early January, after crowds of armed Muslim clerics began to verbally and physically threaten them on their way into court, several reports said.
CASE BECAME HEATED
The case became heated in November after Pakistan’s Supreme Court cancelled Rasool’s bail, Compass Direct said. In December police apprehended a third suspect, seminarian Umar Hayat, who had been at large since the case began in May 2004.
Several hearing were interrupted by Muslim crowds and on February 15 the Punjab High Court rejected Masih’s petition to use his son’s deathbed video testimony as official court evidence.
While Sindhu commented that this was a blow to the prosecution, he said it did not negate a separate April 2004 statement that Anjum made to police from his hospital bed.
The 19-year-old Anjum had named Rasool as one of the men from the Jamia Hassan Bin Murtaza Madrassa who grabbed him when he stopped to get a drink from the school’s water tap.
ELECTRIC SHOCKS APPLIED
He said that electric shocks had been applied to his body in an attempt to convert him to Islam. Following five days of torture the Christian was forced to repeat the Islamic creed in the presence of his captors, several human rights groups said.
Repetition of the creed in the presence of two Muslim witnesses is a valid form of conversion according to Islamic law, though Anjum later told relatives he had not renounced his Christian faith.
Madrassa students immediately turned Anjum over to police, claiming they had caught the young man trying to steal the school’s water pump. Suffering from 26 wounds, including a broken arm and fingers, fingernails ripped off, skin burns and serious injuries to his bladder and kidneys, Anjum was immediately committed to a local hospital.
The third-year commerce student died of his wounds in Faisalabad’s Allied Hospital on May 2, 2004. Hours later police arrested Rasool and following nine days of police interrogation the madrassa guard and prayer leader named the two accomplices. Hayat’s trial is expected to begin later.
DEVELOPMENTS WELCOMED
The developments was expected to be welcomed by Washington which has pressured President Musharraf to crack down on militants and extremists.
On Thursday, March 2, the day before Bush’s arrival, an American diplomat and three Pakistanis were killed in a car bombing outside the US Consulate in Karachi. President Musharraf said the incident would not deter him of fighting terrorism.
President Bush had to strike a delicate balance during this visit. While praising Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror, he also tried to prod President Musharraf to implement greater democratic reforms.
General Musharraf, who came to power seven years ago in a bloodless coup, still has not given up his job as army chief, as he originally promised he would defended his record. "We have introduced the essence of democracy now in Pakistan. It has been done now. All of these things never existed before," he claimed. (With reports from Pakistan).
