NEGOTIATIONS TO SPARE LEEDS MAN BREAKDOWN

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 1st Aug 2006

There have been extremely worrying developments today in the case of Mirza-Tahir Hussain , the Leeds man currently on death row in Pakistan. It has emerged that the family of the taxi driver for whose death Mirza-Tahir currently stands accused has rejected all attempts at finding a resolution between the families involved and are now demanding that Mirza-Tahir be executed.

Previous efforts at sparing Mirza-Tahir from the death penalty have focused upon the negotiations between the families, which under Islamic Law provide a way of securing his reprieve from execution, and possibly his eventual release from prison, if reparations in the form of 'blood money' can be agreed.

However, in the wake of today's announcement all hope of achieving such a compromise appears lost, leaving Mirza-Tahir facing execution when his current temporary stay of execution, granted by Pakistani President General Musharraf, expires in just a few weeks time. Greg Mulholland, the MP of Amjad Hussain, Mirza-Tahir's brother, and his family in Leeds, said: "We have feared this news for a long time and it just confirms what we have been saying all along. Attempting to solve this problem by relying upon these negotiations succeeding, where they had failed for so many years before, was critically misjudged and fundamentally inadequate. Mirza-Tahir's case needs to be urgently and completely re-examined so that it can be exposed for the tragic mis-carriage of justice that it is.His conviction is fundamentally unsafe and breaches standards of international law, yet he continues to languish in a Pakistani prison facing execution in just a few weeks.We need action now to finally bring an end to this horrific 18-year ordeal and bring Mirza-Tahir back home where he belongs."