Death row Briton released

London, Nov 17 (UNI) A Briton who was spared death penalty yesterday after 18 years on death row in Pakistan was released today.

Leeds-born Mirza Hussain's is expected to return home. The decision to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf comes after Prince Charles discussed Mr Hussain's case on a recent Royal visit to Pakistan.

Clarence House confirmed yesterday the Prince was ''very pleased'' with the President's decision.

Mr Hussain was convicted of murder when he told police a taxi driver tried to sexually assault him at gunpoint and that the gun went off in an ensuing struggle, killing the driver. He was convicted of murder but that was quashed by the High Court in Pakistan. But he was then retried under religious laws in an Islamic court and sentenced to death.

This is the first time the President has commuted a death penalty decision made at the Sharia court.

Amjad Hussain, the prisoner's brother, who gave up his job as a scientist to lead the campaign for his freedom, said his brother had received news of the commutation of his sentence from his extended family in Pakistan, and now could not contain his happiness.

''He's obviously grateful to God and the good people of Leeds and Yorkshire who have been campaigning tirelessly on his behalf,'' Mr Hussain said.

But the taxi driver's family is angry with the President's decision. Bereaved relatives of Jamshaid Khan had refused to dishonour his memory by forgiving Mr Hussain in exchange for ''blood money.'' ''His parents are very old, they are wailing. His mother wants to go outside and kill herself, she is losing her senses. Our pain is greater than when the dead body of Jamshed was brought home drenched in blood 18 years ago,'' Sobhat Khan, the dead man's uncle, said.

''We got justice from the courts but Musharraf unilaterally changed the court's decision to appease his foreign masters.'' The family is consulting lawyers to see if the Supreme Court will intervene.

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