Zulfiqar Ali, a terminally ill Pakistani prisoner on death row in Indonesia passed away in a hospital Thursday, shortly after rights activists in Pakistan sought his release on humanitarian grounds.
Ali, who was said to have been ‘wrongly convicted’ in a drugs case, was shifted to an Intensive Care Unit where he breathed his last.
Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a human rights firm, which provides pro-bono legal advice, representation, and investigative services to the most vulnerable prisoners, had requested the Pakistani authorities to urge Indonesia President Joko Widodo to pardon Ali in light of his terminal illness at the earliest.
“The government of Pakistan owes it to Zulfiqar to bring him home, especially after the Indonesian president promised us his safe home. Now he is in the ICU with only a few hours to live. We cannot save his life but we can remove his wrongful conviction so he can die a free man. A promise is a promise,” remarked JPP Executive Director Sarah Belal earlier during the day.
“It is with the heaviest heart that we announce the passing away of Zulfiqar Ali. A Pakistani citizen who has been declared innocent for 8 years, and been innocent since the moment he was arrested. He is mourned by his family and lawyers who fought for his life until the very end,” JPP tweeted.
A father of five from Mughalpura area of Lahore, 53-year-old Zulfiqar had been languishing in an Indonesian prison for almost 14 years. He was arrested in November 2004 after his flatmate was caught with 300 grams of heroin in Jakarta, a city that he wasn’t even in at the time.
He was then charged in the case and sentenced to death.
Zulfiqar was diagnosed with liver cancer in December 2017 and had also been suffering from chronic liver cirrhosis and diabetes mellitus.
“After being detained for nearly 14 years for a wrongful conviction, Zulfiqar may die in prison despite the overwhelming evidence of his innocence,” JPP has said in a statement.
In 2016, his execution was cancelled at the last minute after authorities apparently decided that legal requirements had not been fully satisfied.
In 2010, former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono commissioned an inquiry, which found Zulfiqar innocent.
The report concluded that Zulfiqar had suffered severe human rights abuses. The findings were publicly confirmed by Professor Hafid Abbas, one of the members of the inquiry team who authored the report.
Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, had expressed serious concerns about Ali’s conviction, alleging it arose out of beatings and torture and he did not have a fair trial.
“During his trial, he described this torture, but the judges allowed the ‘confession’ to be admitted as evidence. There has been no independent investigation into his allegations,” Amnesty had said.
Published in Daily Times, June 1st 2018.
