ISTANBUL, Pakistan — After four and one-half years in prison for alleged blasphemy against Islam, Pakistani Christian Aslam Masih was acquitted June 4 in a 15-minute appeals hearing before the Lahore High Court.
In his mid-50s and illiterate, Masih was arrested in November 1998 on charges that he had desecrated the Koran by hanging verses from the Muslim holy book in a charm around a dog’s neck. Although the prosecution only produced hearsay evidence against Masih, he was found guilty in May 2002 and sentenced to double life sentences.
In overturning Masih’s lower court conviction, Justice Najam ur-Zaman reportedly took what one observer called an aggressive attitude against the prosecution, noting that the prosecution’s chief witness had retracted the statement attributed to him by the police. Seven other Christians remain jailed in Pakistan on drawn-out charges of blasphemy.
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