LUCKNOW, May 26: Mohammad Sharif is due to return home to Pakistan from India at the end of the month — over a decade after his family was told he had been executed.

Sharif, 26, says his tale of woe began when he left Karachi At the age of 10 and travelled illegally to Saudi Arabia with his step-brother looking for work.

Saudi authorities charged Sharif with rape when he was 12 but Sharif says he was framed by his step-brother.

He was sentenced to death and his family was told in 1995 he had been executed in Jeddah.

A Saudi appeals court cleared him of the rape but upheld a two-year sentence for lying and other crimes, Sharif said.

After he finished his jail term, he had only a forged Indian passport his step-brother had given him and was deported to India where he ended up in Lucknow.

Indian police arrested him for living illegally in India and sent him to a juvenile centre.

In October 2004, an Indian court ordered his release and return to Pakistan. But his family, believing him to be dead, refused to acknowledge him as their son.

Finally a Lucknow man who was travelling to Karachi met Sharif’s mother and made her telephone her son at the beginning of May.—AFP