Posted on 03/28/2006 5:19:56 AM PST by rajuchor
Christian Convert Vanishes After Release An Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity quickly vanished Tuesday after he was released from prison, apparently out of fear for his life with Muslim clerics still demanding his death.
Italy's Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said he would ask his government to grant Abdul Rahman asylum. Fini was among the first to speak out on the man's behalf.
Rahman, 41, was released from the high-security Policharki prison on the outskirts of Kabul late Monday, Afghan Justice Minister Mohammed Sarwar Danish told The Associated Press.
"We released him last night because the prosecutors told us to," he said. "His family was there when he was freed, but I don't know where he was taken."
Deputy Attorney-General Mohammed Eshak Aloko said prosecutors had issued a letter calling for Rahman's release because "he was mentally unfit to stand trial." He also said he did not know where Rahman had gone after being released.
He said Rahman may be sent overseas for medical treatment.
On Monday, hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting "Death to Christians!" marched through the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif to protest the court decision Sunday to dismiss the case. Several Muslim clerics threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying that he is clearly guilty of apostasy and deserves to die.
"Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it," said senior Cleric Faiez Mohammed, from the nearby northern city of Kunduz. "The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion."
Rahman was arrested last month after police discovered him with a Bible during a custody dispute over his two daughters. He was put on trial last week for converting 16 years ago while he was a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws.
The case set off an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. President Bush and others had insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.
U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said Rahman has asked for asylum outside Afghanistan.
"We expect this will be provided by one of the countries interested in a peaceful solution to this case," he said.
Fini, the Italian foreign minister who is also deputy premier, will seek permission to grant Rahman asylum at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Fini had earlier expressed Italy's "indignation" over the case. Pope Benedict XVI also appealed to Karzai to protect Rahman.
Italy has close ties with Afghanistan, whose former king, Mohammed Zaher Shah, was allowed to live with his family in exile in Rome for 30 years. The former royals returned to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban regime a few years ago.
Asked whether the U.S. government was doing anything to secure Rahman's safety after his release, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that where he goes after being freed is "up to Mr. Rahman." He urged Afghans not to resort to violence even if they are unhappy with the resolution of the case.
The international outrage over Rahman's case put Karzai in a difficult position because he also risked offending religious sensibilities in Afghanistan, where senior Muslim clerics have been united in calling for Rahman to be executed.
This is how we are spreading democracy...why in the world can we not take him in? What a hypocritical country we are!
He's dead by now.
Well, thank god he didn't tell the media where he was going!
Religion of Peace. What a hopeless cause this is.
Lets see now, with all the press this guy got in the Muslim World, lets get him to the Vatican and make him a Cardinal, so he can get a higher profile and become a "Real Problem" for the Muslim Clerics. Any wonder why they want him out of the picture?
The rapture?
"He's dead by now".
If he dies, all the mosques should burn at once.
"This is how we are spreading democracy...why in the world can we not take him in? What a hypocritical country we are!"
I did not read that the US government was NOT doing anything to secure him, and "IF" they were why on earth would they tell anyone about it.
I dont get it... The statement clearly is not forcing him to come to the US but giving Mr Rahman the option...that sounds like freedom to me. Would you prefer we pull a Elian Gonzalez and force him at gunpoint to be protected here in the states?
How do you know that we haven't?
This cult and its leadership promote mind numbing intolerance, murder, and slavery....all nicely packaged in eigth century ignorance.
He d@mn well better not be. The coalition forces should have had a large armed contingent waiting at the prison for his release.
This entire affair has underscores the idiocy of expecting democracy to solve the problem of islamic barbarity.
It may be in this case that we have offered him asylum but don't want the rest of the world to know about it. The spokesman didn't deny it -- he just said that Rahman could go where he wanted.
Carolyn
The question in the first place is why was there ever a trial.
We should take him in and protect him. But what this has revealed, or reinforced, about Islam is the larger question. If Islam is a religion one can join, but no one can leave, that's a problem we are going to have to fix one way or another.
Check for fresh-dug dirt around the family compound.
I thought I read in first accounts where it was his family that ratted him out as a Christian. If it's the same family members that were there when he was freed, he's more than likely dead by now. I pray not. - OB1
I heard the Scientologists offered to give him refuge at one of their centers.
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