Body of Pakistani found dead in German jail arrives home
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Khaleej Times (13th May 2006) LAHORE, Pakistan - The body of a Pakistani student found dead in a German jail while awaiting trial for an alleged assault over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed arrived home on Saturday amid tight security. Senior government official and close relatives were present on the tarmac when the plane carrying the body of Aamir Cheema landed in the eastern city of Lahore from Frankfurt for burial in his hometown. Despite a post-mortem this week in the presence of two senior Pakistani officials finding the 28-year-old had committed suicide, Pakistan’s main opposition alliance of hardline religious parties has labelled him a martyr. Hundreds of people, mostly members of hardline Islamic parties gathered outside the airport but police prevented them from entering the airport premises, witnesses said. “We adopted strict security measures and no incident took place,” police officer Ahmed Din told AFP. The body was immediately transferred into a waiting helicopter for burial in his hometown of Saroki in Gujranwala district, about 95 kilometers (about 60 miles) west of Lahore, he said. Cheema, was found dead in his cell at the Moabit prison in Berlin on May 3 while awaiting trial for allegedly assaulting a German newspaper editor over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. German prosecutors said Wednesday that a post-mortem proved that he committed suicide with a noose fashioned from his own clothes in his cell. The post-mortem examination took place in the presence of two senior Pakistani officials, one from the police and one from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), they said. Cheema’s father has alleged his son, who had been held for six weeks awaiting a court appearance, was tortured to death. His death sparked anger among Islamic parties, which called for Pakistan to lodge a protest with Germany and boycott German products. He had been charged by German prosecutors after entering the Berlin offices of Die Welt newspaper on March 20 armed with a knife. Authorities said he wanted to kill the newspaper’s editor. Earlier this year religious parties held big demonstrations across the country over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which appeared in several Western newspapers. A leading Pakistani rights activist on Friday urged political parties and religious leaders not to exploit Cheema’s death. Ansar Burney said his rights group had made an independent probe and found no signs of foul play in Cheema’s death, and urged politicians and Islamic leaders not to use his demise “for their dirty political gains.” “Religious and political parties should not make an issue out of it. One should condole the death of a young boy, but he was not murdered,” he said Press Back on your browser to Return
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