US nationals barred from meeting convict

All NGO members were American citizens

RAWALPINDI:

Representatives from an American NonGovernmental Organisation were denied permission to meet an individual convicted in a blasphemy case at Adiala Central Jail on Thursday. Five members of the USbased non-profit organisation, including Greg Edwards, Robert Franklin, Donald Zolomeyer, Mark Rice, and Ronald Peter Reich, left the prison without meeting the condemned individual, identified as Zafar Bhatti.

Read Four to hang for blasphemy

According to jail sources, all the NGO representatives were American citizens who had arrived at Adiala Jail the previous day with the intention of meeting Zafar Bhatti, the prisoner involved in the blasphemy case. Despite accompanying Safdar Chaudhry, chairman of the local non-profit organisation ‘Raah-e-Nijat’, the American citizens were not permitted to meet the inmate by the jail administration.

Sources revealed that Zafar Bhatti was implicated in a blasphemy case registered at Rawalpindi's Newtown police station on July 11, 2012. The accused received a death sentence from the competent court upon conviction. The American NGO delegation, after visiting various prisons in Punjab, had reached Rawalpindi Adiala Jail seeking permission to meet him.