A court on July 13 sentenced a Christian to life in prison for alleged blasphemy.
This was in spite of the fact that the complainant retracted the accusation and admitted that police pressured him into making it, his attorney said.
No evidence
Attorney Javed Sahotra said that prosecutors at the court in Toba Tek Singh District in Punjab Province produced no evidence that 29-year-old Sajjad Masih denigrated the prophet of Islam, and that Islamist mobs pressured the judge into the conviction and verdict. Masih was also ordered to pay a fine of 200,000 rupees (US$1,980).