ICC Note:
Lawyers working on the blasphemy case filed against Pakistani Christian Sawan Masih have criticized the court’s decision to hand down the death penalty. Based on the timing the blasphemy accusation was filed with the police, lawyers claim the accused blasphemous statements were an afterthought meant to fortify a bogus accusation. Masih’s lawyers are already preparing their appeal and expect the case to be acquitted in the Lahore High Court. 
3/29/2014 Pakistan (Morning Star News) – Rights groups and attorneys slammed the death sentence handed down to a Christian yesterday, saying the case for his blasphemy conviction was weak while Muslims who destroyed houses and shops in his neighborhood have been freed on bail.
Sawan Masih, now the second Christian on death row on blasphemy charges along with Asia Bibi, was sentenced by Lahore Additional District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Ghulam Murtaza at the Kot Lakhpath Jail on Thursday (March 27). His trial took place at the jail due to security concerns. The street sweeper was also fined 200,000 rupees (US$2,027).
Accusations against Masih sparked the destruction of 180 Christian-owned homes and shops in Lahore’s Joseph Colony in March 2013; an anti-terrorism court freed the 133 Muslim suspects in spite of strong video evidence against them.
Masih, a young father of three, was accused of insulting the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, during a drunken conversation with a Muslim friend in the Joseph Colony area of Lahore on March 8, 2013. Naeem Shakir, the lead counsel for Masih, told Morning Star News after the verdict that it seemed Murtaza got “swayed by his religious passions” when handing the death sentence to Masih.
“The FIR [First Information Report] did not initially mention any objectionable remarks by Masih,” Shakir said. “The [blasphemy accusation] sentences were added eight days after the FIR was registered through a supplementary statement by the complainant on the police’s advice.”
The remarks were inserted two days after Supreme Court intervention in the case, he said. Shakir said that when the Supreme Court took up a supervisory role on a suo moto notice – on its own initiative, without formal petition from anyone else – on March 13, 2013, it rebuked Punjab Police for registering a flimsy FIR.
The lawyer with the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) said the FIR was not registered until 33 hours after the alleged incident, and that the prosecution was unable to account for the delay.
Seven witnesses recorded their statements against Masih during the trial, with two appearing in his favor. In his statement before the court, Masih said he committed no blasphemy and accused Shahid Imran, the complainant, of involving him in a fake case as part of a plot by local businessmen to use blasphemy allegations to drive Christians from Joseph Colony so they could seize it for industrial use.
“They hatched a conspiracy to push out the residents of the colony,” Masih told the court. “They contrived a case and got it filed by a person who was close to me. I am innocent.”
Shakir said that he would challenge Masih’s conviction in the Lahore High Court.
“I’m very hopeful that the High Court will annul the trial court’s verdict,” he said. “Masih has a very good case for acquittal.”
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