KABUL, July 15: A 14-year-old would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan, caught while on a mission to blow up an Afghan provincial governor, was pardoned on Sunday by President Hamid Karzai.

The boy, Rafiqullah, stood to one side of the president and his father to the other at a ceremony here.

Rafiqullah’s father, a poor tradesman from South Waziristan, had sent his son to a seminary. Later, when he asked where his son was, the teachers there brushed him off, he said.

Last month, the boy was caught wearing a suicide vest on a motorbike in Khost.

“Today we are facing a hard fact, that is a Muslim child was sent to madressah to learn Islamic subjects, but the enemies of Afghanistan misled him towards suicide and prepared him to die and kill,” President Karzai told reporters, his arm on the boy’s shoulder.

“His family thought their child was learning Islamic studies. That is neither his fault nor his father’s, the enemies of Islam wanted him to destroy his life and those of other Muslims. I pardon him and wish him a good life,” the president said.

“You are now free and forgiven by the people of Afghanistan,” he said turning to the boy and smiling.

Walking to the gates of the presidential palace with his father, Rafiqullah said: “I am very happy that I am pardoned and released.”

Asked if he had a message for Pakistan, Mr Karzai said: “I have a message, it is a message of peace, forgiveness, a message pleading for better relationships, not cheating the children and encouraging them into terrorism and suicide.”—Reuters