Islamabad, July 07: The lawyer of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian on a death row in Pakistan, will file a fresh mercy petition before the country’s president on Wednesday.
Counsel Owais Sheikh will file the plea before President Asif Ali Zardari in the wake of the Pakistan Supreme Court dismissing his appeal against capital punishment. The petition seeking clemency will include a letter addressed to Zardari by Sarabjit.
“I will file the mercy petition on Wednesday. I have also sought a meeting with the president so that I can take up the matter with him personally,” Sheikh said after meeting Sarabjit at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail.
The letter will urge Zardari to pardon Sarabjit on humanitarian grounds so that he can live the rest of his life with his family in India.
The issue of legal representation for Sarabjit has been mired in confusion over the past few weeks with both Sheikh and another lawyer Rana Abdul Hamid claiming to be his counsel.
However, Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur said she had appointed Sheikh as her brother’s counsel after Hamid failed to appear in the Supreme Court last month during hearings of Sarabjit’s review petition challenging his death sentence.
Hamid did not appear during at least two hearings as he was working as an additional advocate general of Punjab province till last month.
A three-member bench of the Supreme Court dismissed Sarabjit’s review petition and upheld his death sentence. Sarabjit has been on death row since he was convicted for alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in Pakistan in 1990, killing 14 people.
Sarabjit’s family insists he was wrongly convicted for the bombings.
–PTI