Court grants bail for Pakistani Christian charged with blasphemy

The Supreme Court in Lahore had granted bail to a Pakistani Christian who has been imprisoned for three years and almost faced the death penalty due to allegations of blasphemy.

Adnan Prince, who was accused by his colleague of insulting Islam, has been released on a bail bond worth Rs300,000 (around $3,000), World Watch Monitor reported.

Prince's lead counsel, Asma Jahangir, contended that the case against her client should have been decided within two years, but it had been put on hold due to lawyers' strikes and the prosecution's delaying tactics.

Jahangir also stated that legal formalities could not be fulfilled when the investigation was conducted. She cited the guidelines passed by the Supreme Court, which stated that a police officer, not below the rank of a superintendent, should have conducted the investigation.

She also noted that there were no direct eyewitnesses and that there were no links between the forensic evidence and the accused.

Jahangir said that there is a strong possibility that Prince will be released, but there is little chance that a decision will be made the near future.

Earlier applications for bail has been denied by both a district judge and the Lahore High Court.

Prince, who holds a Master's degree in English literature, has been imprisoned in Lahore's district jail since November 2013. The accusations against him started after he was seen reading a controversial book titled "I asked the Bible why the Qur'ans were set on fire."

The book was written by Maulana Ameer Hamza, who is reportedly the leader of Jamat-ud-Dawa, a political arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadi group that claimed responsibility for the Mumbai bombings.

Prince's Muslim colleague, Abid Mehmood, alleged that he had marked several pages of the book "with abusive words against the Prophet of Islam." Prince said he wrote some comments in the book, but he denied using any abusive language in his notes.

"I found the book quite erroneous, giving incorrect information about Christianity," he said. "So I wrote comments with Biblical references in several places, but no abusive language was used," he further noted.

Prince fled following the accusations against him, but he was forced to return home when the police arrested his family members.

"The police were on the verge of killing me after I surrendered to them, but God kept me safe by His grace," Prince told World Watch Monitor at the time.