EU. EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SEEKS MERCY FOR BRITON IN PAKISTAN

the European Parliament wrote to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf asking him to spare the life of a British man due to hang in June for the murder of a taxi driver 18 years ago. The British government earlier in the week pleaded with Musharraf to step in to save Mirza Tahir Hussain from the gallows, and European parliamentarians said they will come to Pakistan to press for mercy.
"The carrying out of this execution will cast a shadow over the reputation of Pakistan as it would clearly represent a rare combination of excessive cruelty and profound injustice," Josep Borrell Fontelles, President of the European Parliament, wrote in a letter to Musharraf on May 18.
Hussain, from Leeds in northern England and of Pakistani descent, was sentenced to death by an Islamic court eight years previously after he was found guilty of shooting dead a taxi driver in Rawalpindi in 1988.
Hussain says the taxi driver pulled a gun on him which went off when they struggled. He said the man had tried to physically and sexually assault him.
Pakistan's High Court had earlier acquitted Hussain. But after a death sentence was passed by the country's Federal Shariat Court, the Supreme Court upheld the decision and rejected a petition. Musharraf turned down an appeal for mercy from Hussain in 2005.