'I was kept for 3 days, then made to leave Pakistan against my wishes': Asia Bibi's lawyer

Asia Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Malook said that the UN and European nation ambassadors in Islamabad kept him for three days and then put him in a plane against his wishes.

This file handout photograph taken on November 20, 2010 and released by the Punjab Governor's House shows the then-governor of Punjab Salman Taseer (R) handing over a document to Asia Bibi (L) who was sentenced to hang in Pakistan's central province of Punjab after being found guilty of insulting the Prophet Mohammed, at the Central Jail in Sheikhupura. Pakistan's Supreme Court on October 31, 2018 overturned the conviction of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother facing execution for blasphemy, in a landmark case which has incited deadly violence and reached as far as the Vatican. HANDOUT / PUNJAB GOVERNOR'S HOUSE / AFP

New Delhi: The lawyer of Asia Bibi, the Christian woman whose death sentence in a blasphemy case was overturned by Pakistan’s Supreme Court recently, has said that the United Nations and the European nation ambassadors made him leave Pakistan against his wishes. The lawyer Saif-ul-Malook who saved the (then) blasphemy convict from long pending death row said that his life was at risk after the landmark verdict of the court which outraged a majority of hardliners and which is why the UN and EU made him leave the country. Malook has fled to Netherlands from Pakistan after the verdict. He said he contacted a United Nations official in Islamabad after violent protests erupted in several parts of Pakistan after the court acquitted Aisa Bibi. While addressing a press conference in The Hague, Malook related that the UN and European nation ambassadors in Islamabad kept him for three days and then put him in a plane against his wishes. He said he did not want to leave the country unless he got Asia out of the prison. He said he was not happy being outside while Asia stays in prison but since everybody said that he was the prime target at the moment and world was standing with Asia Bibi, he had to make a move. "They were of the view that I was the prime target to be killed, and that my life was in imminent danger. For three days they did not let me open the door, one day I called the French ambassador and said I do not want to be here”,he was quoted as saying by PTI. Malook arrived in The Hague at the weekend after a short stopover in Rome, with help of international groups. Asia Bibi spent nearly a decade on death row after being accused of blasphemy, which is a serious charge in the country.  But she remains in Pakistan after Prime Minister Imran Khan struck a deal with the Islamist hardliners behind the protests. Malook however dismissed the deal as a “face-saving” exercise for the hardliners and asserted that Asia would be freed very soon. However, even after she is freed, it is still uncertain which country would she go, as she did not have any firm offers of asylum if she does leave Pakistan.