Court frees man sentenced to death for blasphemy

islamabad — A defence lawyer says a Pakistani court has freed an Islamic preacher who was sentenced to death four years ago on charges of blasphemy.

The lawyer Chaudhry Mehmood Akhtar said on Tuesday that a judge in the city of Rawalpindi acquitted Mohammed Ishaq on Friday after finding him “completely innocent” of disrespecting Islam.

Akhtar said Ishaq was arrested and sentenced to death in 2013 after a citizen in Punjab province accused him of claiming in conversation to actually be God.

Under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, anyone accused of ridiculing God, Islam or religious personalities can be sentenced to death. However, the laws are also sometimes used to settle personal scores or grudges. —