A court in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi has sentenced a 70-year-old British man to death after convicting him of blasphemy.

Muhammad Asghar was arrested in 2010 after writing letters to various people claiming to be a prophet, reports say.

His lawyers argued for leniency, saying he has a history of mental illness, but this was rejected by a medical panel.

Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws carry a potential death sentence for anyone deemed to have insulted Islam.

Asghar, who is from Edinburgh, Scotland, was accused of writing letters to police officers claiming to be a prophet. He is thought to have lived in Pakistan for several years.

Muhammad Asghar is a British Pakistani from Edinburgh who came back to Pakistan to look after the family’s property here. He has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by the Royal Victoria Hospital in Edinburgh and is also partially paralysed from a stroke. The court did not accept his medical reports from the UK, reports say.

Correspondents say Asghar is unlikely to be executed as Pakistan has had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 2008. He was also ordered to pay a substantial fine by the court.

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, where 97% of the population are Muslim.

Muslims constitute a majority of those prosecuted, followed by the minority Ahmadi community.   »»» BBC News

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