Afghan Christian’s case dropped

KABUL, Afghanistan – A court on Sunday dismissed the case against an Afghan man facing possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity, officials said, paving the way for his release.

The move eased pressure from the West but raised the dilemma of protecting Abdul Rahman after his release as Islamic clerics have called for him to be killed.

One official said freedom might come as soon as today for Rahman, who became a Christian in the 1990s while working for an aid group in neighboring Pakistan.

Muslim extremists, who have demanded death for Rahman as an apostate for rejecting Islam, warned the decision would touch off protests across this religiously conservative country. Some clerics previously vowed to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he were let go.

Rahman was moved to Kabul’s notorious high-security Policharki prison Friday after inmates at a jail in central Kabul threatened him, Policharki’s warden, Gen. Shahmir Amirpur, said.

The case set off an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001. President Bush and others insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.

Amirpur said Rahman had been asking guards for a Bible but they had none.

“He looks very calm. But he keeps saying he is hearing voices,” Amirpur said.

A senior guard said inmates and many guards had not been told of Rahman’s identity because of fears they might attack him. But Amirpur vouched for the prisoner’s safety. “We are watching him constantly. This is a very sensitive case, so he needs high security.”

A Supreme Court spokesman, Abdul Wakil Omeri, said the case had been dismissed because of “problems with the prosecutors’ evidence.” He said several of Rahman’s relatives testified he is mentally unstable and prosecutors have to “decide if he is mentally fit to stand trial.”

Another Afghan official closely involved with the case said that the court ruled there was insufficient evidence and returned the case to prosecutors for further investigation. But he said Rahman would be released in the meantime.

“They don’t have to keep him in jail while the attorney general is looking into the case,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the case.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said she had not received official confirmation from Afghan authorities, told Fox News the announcement was “a very good step forward.”

The court’s decision was sure to anger at least some of the clerics who have strongly demanded that authorities enforce a provision in the country’s Islamic-based laws calling for the execution of Muslims who abandon the faith.

“There will be big protests across Afghanistan,” said Faiez Mohammed, a Sunni Muslim leader in the northern city of Kunduz. “This has shamed Afghanistan in the eyes of other Muslim countries.”