President Hamid Karzai has personally intervened in the case of an Afghan man facing execution for converting to Christianity, a top official said yesterday, amid fierce criticism in the West.
Karzai was consulting with various government organizations to resolve the matter as soon as possible, the senior government official said on condition of anonymity.
"The president is personally working to resolve it peacefully. There is a way out of it," he said. "I believe it'll take one or two days."
Rahman was arrested under Islamic Sharia law about two weeks ago after his parents went to the authorities, reportedly following a family dispute.
Sharia law, on which the Afghan constitution is partly based, rules that a Muslim who converts from Islam should be put to death.
Another senior official said late on Friday that the convert, 41-year-old Abdul Rahman, was likely to be released from jail soon. He said the matter would be discussed at a top-level meeting yesterday.
However the Supreme Court judge handling the case, Ansarullah Mawlawizada, insisted yesterday that the court would act independently.
"We have nothing to do with diplomatic issues," he told reporters when asked about the international outcry. "We'll do our job independently."
Asked if this meant Rahman would be sentenced to death as Sharia law requires, he said: "It's too early to predict."
The case has attracted widespread international condemnation, especially from the US, which led the campaign to remove the fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001 and is the main donor to destitute Afghanistan.
The Islamist Taliban implemented a tough version of Sharia that included stoning people to death for adultery and chopping off the hands of thieves.
The matter has presented a dilemma for this country, which has agreed to international treaties on human rights but is under pressure from conservative Islamic clerics to abide by Sharia law.
Besides the US, Britain, Australia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada and the UN have also voiced their concern about the case, threatening to drive a rift between Afghanistan and the Western countries it relies on to rebuild after 20 years of war.
But Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Thursday that Karzai had assured him that Rahman would not face the death penalty.
Afghanistan's Supreme Court said this week it was trying to find a "good solution," including persuading Rahman to revert to Islam.
It has also said Rahman may be psychologically unfit to stand trial, which analysts have said would provide the government with a face-saving solution.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been among the fiercest critics of the case, telephoning Karzai to hammer home "in the strongest possible terms" Washington's concern.
US President George W. Bush also said he was "deeply troubled."
The US led the military campaign to topple the Taliban regime in 2001 after it refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks.
It has 16,000 troops in Afghanistan battling Taliban and other anti-government insurgents.
Rahman converted 16 years ago while working for a Christian aid organization in Pakistan, according to court officials. He later lived in Germany for nine years.
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