ICC Note:

According to reports, the primary suspect in the case regarding a Christian couple that was burned alive by a mob in 2014 has been released on bail. In November 2014, Shahzad Masih and his wife, Shama Bibi, were beaten and burned alive in a brick kiln after being accused of desecrating a Quran. The violent incident sparked international outrage and led to many arrests by the authorities in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Now that international pressure has waned, the court overseeing this case has decided to release the primary suspect out on bail. Is this an indication that the family of these Christian victims will never see justice? 

4/20/2016 Pakistan (BosNewsLife) – Pakistan’s Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) is hearing witnesses after a key suspect in the lynching death of Christian couple Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi was released on bail, a rights official told BosNewsLife.

Yousaf Gujjar, who was publicly named as the primary suspect in the massive attack by Muslims, was freed this week amid divisions among police investigators over his role in the murders, Christian trial observers said.

However, “I am requested by the brother of [late] Shahzad to appear in the Anti-Terrorist Court in the eastern city of] Lahore” Wednesday, April 20, “because the case is fixed for cross-examination of witnesses,” confirmed Sardar Mushtaq Gill, national director of advocacy group Legal Evangelical Association Development (LEAD).

Gill told BosNewsLife that on November 4, 2014 a “mob of around 1600 burnt Shahzad and Shamma alive in a brick kiln owned by Yousaf Gujjar” in Kot Radha Kishan town, some 64 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Lahore.

Masih, 26, and his five months-pregnant wife Bibi, 24, had been working there as bonded laborers, an officially illegal but widespread practise in Pakistan, according to investigators. Gill said the two Christians, who were tortured before being thrown into a furnace, had been accused of blasphemy against Islam “which incited a horrific end to their lives.”

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