Islamabad:
Pakistani activist Ansar Burney has appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari today to convert the death sentence of Indian national Sarabjit Singh, facing gallows on charges of involvement in bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan, to life imprisonment on humanitarian grounds.
Sarabjit Singh, imprisoned since 1990, was given the death sentence under the Army Act for his alleged involvement in four bomb blasts that killed 14 people.
In a letter to Mr Zardari, Mr Burney noted that he had submitted several mercy petitions on Sarabjit's behalf to the President.
He said any move to hang a prisoner who had already spent such a long time in jail would be tantamount to a "murder of justice".
"I would like to mention here that one day in a death cell is equal to one year in a normal jail and that prolonged detention in the worst and inhuman circumstances on death row is, at the very least, cruel treatment and the worst kind of human rights violations," Mr Burney said in his letter.
Mr Burney's request comes two days after the Supreme Court's order, allowing 82-year-old Pakistani national Khalil Chishty to travel back home after being granted bail. He was accused of involvement in the murder of a man during a brawl in Ajmer in April 1992. At the time, he was visiting India to meet his relatives. In January last year, Chishty was given life imprisonment after an 18-year trial.
Mr Burney also said that Sarabjit Singh, currently being held at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail, was not given a fair trial and was the victim of a case of mistaken identity.
"I would like to ask your honour as to where is it (written) in Islam to hang innocents or prisoners of circumstances or those sentenced only because of false witnesses, or those who spent more than life imprisonment?" Mr Burney asked.
"I would humbly like to once again ask how a democratic government can hang a person who had already completed a life sentence (in such cruel and inhuman circumstances), which is not less than hell," he said.
Mr Burney asked the President to look into the matter seriously and take "some appropriate decisions within time".
Earlier he submitted a mercy petition to the Army Chief, but it was rejected with a direction that it should be forwarded to the President.
Though Sarabjit was set to be hanged in 2008, Pakistani authorities put off his execution indefinitely after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani intervened in the matter. His family has said he wandered across the border in an inebriated condition and that he was arrested by Pakistani authorities after being mistaken for another Indian man.