Ludford fights for Afzal Guru in the European Parliament

4.26.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 20th Apr 2007

Sarah Ludford MEP, vice-chair of the European Parliament's human rights sub-committee and a patron of Fair Trials Abroad, has called on the President of the European Parliament to urge the Indian President Abdul Kalam when he visits Strasbourg next week to grant a Presidential Pardon to Mohammad Afzal Guru.

Sarah is working with Liberal Democrat colleague Sajjad Karim, European Parliament Rapporteur for EU-India trade and economic relations, to draw attention to the case of Mohammad Afzal Guru who was sentenced to death in December 2002 after being convicted of conspiracy to attack the Indian Parliament, waging war against India and murder.

He was convicted and sentenced under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which was repealed by the Indian Government in September 2004 on the grounds that it had been misused and falls considerably short of fair trial standards.

Sarah commented:

"It is imperative that European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering raises the case of Afzal Guru with President Kalam next week. A failure to do so would undermine the European Parliament's role as a standard bearer for human rights. India is a democratic country which enshrines the rule of law, but in this case there has been a deeply worrying miscarriage of justice."

"Execution is a barbaric practice which in any case has no place in the modern world and the EU has important work to do to persuade other countries to abolish the death penalty. It would be a grave error for India to execute Afzal Guru in the face of the grave and well-founded concerns that his trial fell far short of international, and Indian, standards."