ISLAMABAD, Oct 17: The execution date of British national Mirza Tahir Hussain, a murder convict, has been fixed for November 1. A sessions court judge has fixed the date of execution and issued an order in this regard to the Adyala Jail authorities on Saturday. Earlier, the jail administration had requested the court to fix the date for October 2.

The jail administration, in its letter to the sessions court, said that the stay in execution of Hussain ended on October 1, and requested to fix a new date.

The death warrant of Hussain has already been issued. However, his execution was stopped twice by the President of Pakistan when members of his family, the British prime minister and the president of the EU appealed for pardon.

Hussain has already spent 18 years on the death row. He was just 18 and on a family visit to Pakistan in 1989 when his ordeal began with the taxi he had hired to take him to his hometown near Chakwal.

On the way, he claims, the taxi driver and an accomplice tried to rob and sexually assault him at gunpoint. During the scuffle, the taxi driver suffered a bullet injury which claimed his life.

The district and sessions court that tried him on murder charge sentenced him to death. But the same court, on the directive of the Lahore High Court where Hussain had gone into appeal, reviewed the sentence and changed it into life term. He challenged the lowered sentence, but the Shariat Court enhanced the sentence to death.

AMNESTY: Reacting with disappointment to the news that Hussain is to be executed on November 1, his family, the Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have renewed their appeals to President Pervez Musharraf to intervene and stop the execution.