BLASPHEMY ACCUSED WHISKED AWAY FOR SAFETY

ISLAMABAD A Christian woman acquitted by Pakistan’s Supreme Court eight years after being sentenced to death for blasphemy was flown Wednesday night to a facility in the capital Islamabad from an undisclosed location for security reasons, two senior officials said.

Amid tight security, Asia Bibi left Punjab province for the flight, the officials said. Troops guarded the roads leading to the airport from which she left, they said.

Authorities last month said they arrested two prisoners for allegedly conspiring to strangle her and since then additional police and troops have been deployed to the facility in Punjab.

Bibi’s transfer comes a week after the high court in a landmark ruling acquitted Bibi and ordered her released, a move that triggered nationwide protests.

Bibi’s release was put on hold Friday after authorities held talks with radical Islamists who want her publicly hanged.

Authorities now say Bibi may not leave the country because a petition for a review of the court’s ruling was filed by a radical Islamist lawyer requesting the acquittal be reversed. Pakistani courts usually take years to decide such cases.