SOURCE : THE NATIONAL

  
Veer Kaur holds a photograph of her son Sukhjinder Singh, one of 17 Indians sentenced to death for killing a Pakistani man -  The National

DUBAI - APR 14: A human rights activist has offered to pay blood money to the family of a Pakistani man on behalf of the 17 Indian men who have been sentenced to death for his murder.

Ansar Burney, the chairman of the Ansar Burney Trust, which is funded by donations from the UK and Pakistan, said he is willing to negotiate with the family of the dead man. He said the trust was willing to pay at least Dh200,000 (US$54,000).

“We can give a little bit more because human dignity is very important and we have full sympathy for the family of the deceased,” he said.

Mr Burney has yet to meet the family, but he said he had written to the Pakistani government asking for information on the man who died in Sharjah.

Mr Burney, a former federal Pakistani minister for human rights, has also appealed to the Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi.

“We have no sympathy with hardened criminals,” he said. “We decided to look into this because it was shocking. Those who are involved, they must be met with justice.”

If the dead man’s family accepts the blood money and retracts their requests for the death penalty, the 17 men convicted of murder would no longer face execution.

The Sharjah court found the men guilty of beating to death a Pakistani man and wounding three others when a fight involving dozens of alleged bootleggers broke out in the Sajja industrial area in January 2009.

A panel of judges, led by Yaqoub al Hammadi, ruled that all 17 had played a part in the killing by beating the victim with metal bars. The man suffered a skull fracture and died before police arrived.

Three other Pakistani men were taken to hospital with serious injuries. Fifty people were initially arrested for their involvement in the brawl, which police said was a result of a turf war between members of rival gangs who were illegally selling alcohol in and around the labour camps.

A Dubai-based law firm has been asked by the Indian consulate to defend the men. Bindu Suresh Chettur, a lawyer with Mohammed Salman Advocates and Legal Consultants, said she will visit the men in prison today as she prepares a defence for the appeals court.

The next phase of the trial will take place on May 19 in Sharjah.

Ms Chettur said she will receive the arrest records for the 17 men in the next few days. The automatic appeal of the death sentence was filed on April 8.

“We will be preparing a detailed defence,” she said. But “we want to see the records first”.

The convicted men were provided legal aid by the Sharjah courts before the appointment of a lawyer by the Indian consulate.

Ms Chettur will translate the court documents from Arabic into English but she will not represent the men in court. By law, only an Emirati lawyer can defend the men in the appellate court.

Mohammed Salman Marzouqi, who works at the same law firm as Ms Chettur, will present the case before the court of justice.

The Ministry of Justice had appointed an Emirati lawyer for the accused men in lower court proceedings, as required by law for capital crimes.