A British man is back on death row in Pakistan and will be hanged on August 3 after the family of a man he allegedly murdered, refused a blood money deal, jail officials said on Friday.
Mirza Tahir Hussain -- who has spent 18 years fighting his death sentence for killing a taxi driver in 1988 -- had been granted a one-month stay of execution in May by President Pervez Musharraf.
"The stay of execution expired on July 10 and we approached the sessions judge to fix a new date for the execution," Falak Sher, the official in charge of the warrant section at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, told the agency.
"I received the orders on Thursday. The execution is fixed for August 3."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other officials have appealed to Musharraf to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.
Hussain, 36, from Leeds in northern England, was earlier cleared by Pakistan's high court after claiming that that the driver tried to sexually assault him and he killed him in self-defence.
But an Islamic court reinstated the sentence. Musharraf rejected an outright clemency plea last year.
{{/usCountry}}But an Islamic court reinstated the sentence. Musharraf rejected an outright clemency plea last year.
{{/usCountry}}Officials said the stay of execution was to give time for Hussain's family to negotiate with the relatives of victim Jamshed Khan, under Islamic law which allows the payment of "blood money" to the victim's family.
"It appears the two sides could not reach a compromise," prison official Sher said.
Hussain's brother Amjad, who has mounted a desperate campaign for mercy, said in May that relatives of the victim had turned down an offer of 18,000 pounds by Hussain's family six years ago.
Hussain is of dual British-Pakistani nationality.