Birmingham dad tells of four years on death row

Oct 25 2010 by Jonny Greatrex, Sunday Mercury

A DAD has revealed how he spent four years in a Pakistan jail facing the death penalty for a murder he did not commit.

Birmingham cabbie Mohammed Hanif, 49, had travelled to the disputed Kashmir region to see his eldest daughter marry.

But during his stay in the remote city of Mirpur, cops accused the father-often of gunning down a former friend.

Mohammed spent the next four years in jail awaiting trial and always maintained his innocence – saying he was miles away from the scene of the attack.

Now he is finally back home with his family in Sparkhill after being acquitted by a judge who dismissed falsified evidence linking him to the crime.

“I’m so grateful to be home,” the dad told the Sunday Mercury. “I’ve been caught up in a fiction from the start, knowing I’d done nothing wrong.

“Being away from your family and friends for so long was very tough, I’m just glad to be out.”

The cabbie and his family flew to Pakistan to see daughter Noreen marry in July 2006 and had been staying at a house in Mirpur when his ordeal began.

“Some of our children were playing on the first floor of the house we were staying in,” said Mohammed.

“They could see into the neighbour’s yard where there was a wedding and the neighbour’s wife began shouting and swearing at them.

“Later, her family gathered outside our gate, so my wife went to talk to them but she was slapped.

“I heard the commotion and went to ask them what they were doing. But they would not listen and went back to their house.

‘‘We were confused about what had happened.”

Worried about how to react to the unprovoked attack, Mohammed arranged a meeting with an influential former city mayor to ask for advice.