Condemned Briton's family stage demo for Musharraf

OXFORD, England, Sep 29 (Reuters) Relatives of a British man due to be hanged in Pakistan in two days urged the country's president today to intercede, staging a demonstration as Pervez Musharraf arrived to speak at Oxford University.

Leeds-born Mirza Tahir Hussain is due to die on October 1. He was accused of killing a taxi driver in 1988 but was acquitted by the Lahore High Court. Pakistan's Federal Sharia Court then took up the case and convicted him.

''He has lost the prime of his youth behind bars for an offence that has no eyewitness and a crime he did not commit,'' said his brother Amjad Hussain, outside the Oxford Union.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said Mr Blair raised the issue with Musharraf during a private meeting between them at Downing Street yesterday but did not give any details.

Security at the event in Oxford was extremely tight.

Musharraf delivered a speech entitled ''Pakistan in the 21st century: Internal and External Challenges and Opportunities''. He made no comment on the Hussain case and declined to take questions from journalists afterwards.

Greg Mulholland, Liberal Democrat member of parliament for Leeds North West, said after the demonstration that Musharraf had acknowledged the protest.

''President Musharraf is the only person who can overturn what is so clearly a gross miscarriage of justice,'' Mulholland said. ''We realise he has to make a bold decision.'' Hussain was originally scheduled to be hanged in June but his execution was delayed after the Pakistan government ordered a stay following appeals from the British government, the European Parliament and the convicted man's family.

Now 36, Hussain was arrested in 1988 and charged with murdering and robbing a taxi driver, Jamshaid Khan.

At his trial, Hussain said the driver had tried to sexually assault him. He maintained the driver pulled a gun on him that went off when the two struggled.

The sentence of death by hanging handed down by the Islamic Federal Sharia Court was upheld by Pakistan's Supreme Court in 2003 and a review petition rejected a year later.

Under Islamic Sharia law, relatives of a victim may pardon a murderer in return for blood money but the dead man's family have so far rejected attempts to reach a settlement.

Reuters BDP DB2334