Prince Charles contacts Pakistan over execution

Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall are due to fly on October 29.

Hussain, who is originally from Leeds, is due to be hanged on November 1 for murdering a taxi driver 18 years ago.

A spokesman for Charles said: “The Prince of Wales has been concerned about this case for some time and had raised it with the prime minister of Pakistan.”

He said he could not confirm when Charles had contacted the Pakistani Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz.

Earlier, Charles’s office issued a statement which said: “We have been following the situation closely and will act in accordance with Foreign Office advice.”

This followed an announcement from a Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland who said he had written an urgent letter to the Prince urging him not to go ahead with the visit unless the execution is stopped.

Mr Mulholland later pressed prime minister Tony Blair over the issue in the House of Commons but Mr Blair said he did not want to comment on the trip.

The prime minister did tell MPs the planned execution would be a “very serious” act.

He said the British government would “continue to make representations up until the last moment” in the case and he disclosed that he had raised the matter “personally” with President Pervez Musharraf during his recent visit.

Mr Blair said: “We have raised this constantly with the Pakistani authorities. I raised it personally with president Musharraf when he was here a couple of weeks ago.

“I hope even at this stage that there is an intervention to ensure this does not take place. I think it would be very serious if it does.”

Earlier today, Mr Mulholland said: “For this unjust execution to go ahead anyway would be bad enough, but to do this when Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, is visiting the country would be monstrous.”

“I would urge His Royal Highness to cancel his visit if this terrible miscarriage of justice, the state murder of a man from Leeds, is scheduled to go ahead at that time.

“Cancelling the visit will send a clear and powerful message to the Pakistani authorities.”

A Pakistani official today confirmed Hussain’s hanging would take place on November 1 – a date Hussain’s family had been informed of earlier this week.

Hussain, 36, was convicted of murdering taxi driver Jamshed Khan in 1988 and has been in custody ever since.

His family and a coalition of groups have campaigned for years against the execution. A number of stays have been agreed but this latest date has prompted serious concern among Hussain’s supporters.

Earlier this week Amnesty International joined his brother Amjad Hussain to call on president Musharraf to halt the execution immediately.

Amjad Hussain said: “This is now a matter of utmost urgency as time is fast running out for my brother.

“President Musharraf does have the power to step in and stop the execution of an innocent man – and he should exercise it.”

Hussain, a former Territorial Army soldier from Leeds, was just 18 when he left West Yorkshire in December 1988 to visit relatives in Pakistan.

Three days after flying out from Heathrow, Hussain, who was brought to Britain as a baby by his parents, took a train from his aunt’s home in Karachi to Rawalpindi, where he took a taxi for the journey to his family in the village of Bhubar.

Later that night Hussain led police to the body of the driver, who had been shot dead, and told them that the driver had tried to sexually assault him and pulled a gun, and that during a struggle the weapon went off and killed the driver.

In 1996 Hussain was acquitted at the Lahore High Court.

A week later it was declared that some of the alleged offences came within the jurisdiction of Islamic law and his case was referred to the Federal Sharia Court, which reversed the decision of the High Court and served Hussain with the death penalty.