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Islamabad, Jun 3 (EFE).- A Pakistani court on Thursday acquitted a Christian couple who had been sentenced to death in 2014 for alleged blasphemy and ordered their release from prison.
The ruling comes after the European Parliament had condemned the case and pressured Pakistani authorities to absolve the couple, who had been found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a text message.
“The court order said both are acquitted of the charge (…) We will challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court and we are hopeful of getting justice there,” the complainant’s lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa, told Efe after the decision by the Lahore High Court.
A Pakistani court acquitted a Christian couple of their blasphemy charges after being “left to die” on death row for nearly eight years over false allegations that they insulted the Islamic prophet Muhammad through text messages.
Image: Martin Bureau / AFP / Getty Images / World Watch Monitor
Shafqat Emmanuel (top left) and Shagufta Kausar (bottom left) are the first Pakistani Christians on death row to be acquitted of blasphemy after Asia Bibi (right).
The Pakistani Christian woman who replaced Asia Bibi in her prison cell on death row, Shaguftah Kausar, has after a dozen delays since April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic been acquitted from the death penalty by the Lahore high court.
The mother of four, along with her disabled husband, Shafqat Emmanuel, was arrested for blasphemy in 2013 and sentenced to death in 2014. Despite both being illiterate, the Catholic couple, surnamed Masih , were convicted of sending blasphemous texts in English to Islamic clerics.