LAWYER DEMANDS RELEASE FOR AFGHAN REPORTER ON DEATH ROW

the lawyer of an Afghan reporter sentenced to death on blasphemy charges accused authorities of holding his client beyond a legal deadline, as the young man neared a full year in detention. The appeal of Perwiz Kambakhsh, arrested in October 2007 and sentenced to death by a primary court in January 2008 has been repeatedly delayed because witnesses who had first testified against him did not turn up to court. "Based on the law, an appeal court can hold a suspect only for two months. Within this two months, it either should rule or otherwise the suspect must be freed," lawyer Mohammad Afzal Shormach Nuristani told reporters. Nuristani said he had challenged the appeal court in June to present 12 people who had apparently testified against Kambakhsh in his northern home town of Mazar-i-Sharif. "They can't hold my client because the witnesses don't turn up. This is against the law," Nuristani said.