Top court to take up Aasia Bibi’s appeal in October

ISLAMABAD: The top court will take up Aasia Bibi’s final appeal against her death sentence in a blasphemy case in October. The Christian woman has been on the death row since November 2010 but her case gained prominence after then Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer pleaded for a retrial and was shot dead.

Aasia’s counsel Saiful Malook told The Express Tribune that his client’s appeal against the death sentence has been fixed for hearing in the second week of October.

On July 22, 2015, a three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, granted Aasia the right to appeal while suspending the Lahore High Court’s earlier order of maintaining her death sentence.

Aasia, 51, was sentenced to death in November 2010 after being convicted of blasphemy during an argument with a Muslim woman over a bowl of water in Sheikhupura in June 2009.

She filed an appeal in the Supreme Court in November 2014, claiming she had not uttered any blasphemous remarks and was falsely accused by her neighbours over a personal feud.

The SC in its October 27, 2015 judgment in the Qadri case urged the government to ensure that no one was forced to endure an investigation or trial on the basis of false blasphemy allegations.

Advocate Saif, who was the prosecutor in the Qadri case also, believes the top court decision will be in favour of Aasia this time.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2016.