QUETTA, Nov 11: United States President George W. Bush has rejected the mercy petitions of the mother of Aimal Khan Kasi and Human Rights Commission for converting his death sentence into life imprisonment, family sources said.

“The mercy petitions of his mother and HRCP have been rejected by the US president,” a relative of Aimal told newsmen on Monday.

Aimal Kasi was awarded death sentence by a court in Virginia for killing two CIA agents and injuring three others in front of the CIA headquarters there in 1993.

Kasi’s brother Mir Wais left for the US the other day and his elder brother Hameedullah Kasi has been there for the last few month for making legal efforts to save his life, he said.

Aimal Kasi’s mother and vice-chairperson of the HRCP, Balochistan chapter, Malik Zahoor Ahmed Shahwani, had sent mercy petitions separately to President Bush and Arkansas governor urging them to convert the capital punishment into life imprisonment.

However, President Bush and the governor rejected their pleas. The US government has fixed Nov 14 for implementing the sentence.

Security was tightened in and around the provincial capital to avert any untoward incident in reaction.

Chieftain of the Kasi tribe, Nawab Abdul Zahir Khan Kasi, has once again appealed to President Bush to pardon Aimal Kasi. “We are peaceful law abiding and civilized people and do not believe in violence,” Zahir Kasi said on Monday and expressed regret over the killing of the CIA agents.

However, he said that due to discriminatory policies and other reasons, oppressed nations and poor people hated the US. “Every religion gives the lesson of tolerance and we expect tolerance and mercy from President Bush and the American nation for Aimal Kasi,” he said.

He said the US was a supper power and it should show tolerance in the case.

He appealed to the relatives of the deceased to forgive Aimal Kasi.

Aimal Kasi had returned to Pakistan after the incident and gone in hiding but FBI agents with the help of security officials and some other people arrested him on June 15, 1997 in Dera Ghai Khan.

The government of Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif handed him over to the US.