August 30, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 1, 1424

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PESHAWAR, Aug 29: The Amnesty International (AI) has urged upon President Gen Musharraf to accept the mercy petition of a juvenile offender on death row, Muhammad Ameen, hailing from Peshawar. He was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi.

In an urgent action call given to human rights activists on Thursday for saving imminent execution of the offender, the AI stated that Muhammad Ameen was a victim of unfair trial and his mercy petition should be accepted as he was below 18 at the time of occurrence.

The world human rights body states that Muhammad Ameen was sentenced to death on Jan 31, 2000, after being found guilty of murder in Rawalpindi in 1998, when he was below the age of 18.

Mohammad Ameen was accused of the robbery and killing along with two men, who were both around 30-year old. When the case was brought to trial before the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, which also hears criminal cases, one of the co-defendants was acquitted while the other was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. At that time, the court recorded Mohammad Ameen’s age as being 18.

He appealed against the death sentence to the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court. The bench hearing the appeal reportedly confused a medical report on Mohammad Ameen with one on the victim of the crime, and understood that Mohammad Ameen was 30 at that time. The appeal was rejected on Sept 13, 2001, and another appeal to the Supreme Court in March 2002, was overruled on the grounds that Mohammad Ameen’s lawyer had not raised the issue of age during the appeal in the High Court.

In its decision, the Supreme Court mistakenly reported that the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi had recorded Mohammad Ameen’s age as being 30. A petition filed in the Supreme Court questioning this decision was rejected by the apex court in June 2003.

Mohammad Ameen’s only hope of clemency lies in a mercy petition to the president which is due to be filed on his behalf in the next few days.

Mohammad Ameen’s birth certificate and his high school certificate were presented as evidence of his age to both the Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court. As both the courts did not consider this evidence, it means that Mohammad Ameen did not receive a fair trial, the AI observed.

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