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Musharraf to intervene and pardon an innocent Indian man facing execution for spying and involvement in bomb attacks – Indian diplomacy wins?
India has applied full diplomatic throttle to get a pardon for an Indian man facing execution for spying and involvement in bomb attacks.
Pakistan's Supreme Court last week upheld a death sentence imposed on Manjit Singh in 1991 for spying for India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, and involvement in bombings in the central province of Punjab.
But all facts point to man who was drunk and just crossed the border.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri said on Wednesday it was up to President Pervez Musharraf to decide whether to pardon an Indian man facing execution for spying and involvement in bomb attacks.
Souces say, Musharraf is inclined to pardon move forward with more important issues like Kashmir.
The decision of the supreme court of Pakistan stirred emotions in India after the man's family threatened to commit suicide if the execution was carried out.
Kasuri said he discussed the issue with Musharraf on Tuesday.
He said Singh could petition the Supreme Court to review its decision and if that failed he could appeal to Musharraf.
"As far as clemency is concerned, it's in nobody's hands. It has to go to the president of Pakistan," he told reporters. "If a mercy petition comes, then the president will decide on merit."
The call to save the convicted man comes at a time when relations between India and Pakistan have improved since they relaunched a peace process in early 2004.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is due to meet Musharraf in New York next month when both men visit the UN General Assembly, said on Tuesday he would speak to his Pakistani counterpart, Shaukat Aziz, to try to stop the execution.
Manjit Singh was convicted of involvement in three bomb blasts in the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Faisalabad and a case linking him to another in Multan was still pending.
His family says he is innocent and was a farmer in India's Punjab state who wandered into Pakistan in 1990 while drunk.
Singh's lawyer, Abdul Hameed Rana, said he would file a petition asking the Supreme Court to review its decision in a few days. "Our main plea will be that he is innocent and should be acquitted."
In the past, India and Pakistan often accused each other's spy agencies of setting off bombs and fomenting internal strife.
Each country holds hundreds of prisoners from the other side, mostly fishermen and civilians who accidentally stray across sea and land boundaries.
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