PRESSURE GROWING ON PAKISTANI PRESIDENT TO SPARE LEEDS MAN

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 1st Sep 2006

The pressure is growing on Pakistani President General Musharraf after it was revealed that, following calls from campaigners, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has written to him personally in regards to Mirza-Tahir Hussain, the Leeds man currently on death row in Pakistan.

Greg Mulholland, the constituency MP for Mirza-Tahir's family in Leeds, has called upon the President to heed this message and to use the powers awarded to him by the Pakistani constitution to spare Mirza-Tahir's life.

Commenting Greg said:

"I wrote to the Prime Minister to ask him to intervene in this case and I am glad that he has responded to these calls by writing personally to President Musharraf about Mirza-Tahir.

However, weeks have now passed and the Government have told us that no response has been forthcoming.

President Musharraf must recognise that this is an issue which is not going to just go away. We will not stop until Mirza-Tahir has been spared from exectution; President Musharraf must use the powers of his office to prevent this terrible miscarriage of justice from ending in tragedy."