Asia Bibi lawyer confirms plans to appeal death sentence
Just after a court upheld a death sentence from blasphemy charges against a Pakistani Christian, Asia Bibi, her lawyer proclaimed their intentions to appeal yet against.
Bibi has been sentenced to hang for her faith and will now have to go to the Supreme Court. Sources say she will never actually be killed, the Christian Today quoted a source who said that it is “highly unlikely” that Bibi’s sentence will be carried out.
“She is the first Christian woman to ever be handed the death sentence, and Pakistan haven’t carried out any executions in six years,” the source, who could not be named for security reasons, added.
Asia allegedly made disparaging remarks about Mohammed after several of women refused to drink from the bowl she handled because she was unclean. The argument lead to allegations to local officials and the family was brutally attacked.
The mother of five has been on death row awaiting appeal since the Session’s Court in District Nankana, Pujab, announced her conviction and death sentence in October 2010.
The Daily Mail spoke with Asia’s family and her oldest daughter, Esham Masih, who was nine years old when the attack happened spoke out.
She chronicles how her mother was being abused by a gang of men, her clothes torn off and she was taken into custody.
“My friends told me that people were torturing my mother at the fields where she used to work,’ she said to the Mail. “I rushed to the spot and found that she was being abused and tortured by men. They had even torn her clothes.’