ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Lawyers of a 25-year-old Christian sentenced to death because he converted to Christianity said Monday they would challenge his conviction in the Pakistani High Court.
"We are confident that the higher court would set it aside," says Mahboob Ali Khan, a lawyer for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Aslam Masih was arrested in May 2000 and charged under Pakistan's blasphemy laws which carries the death penalty for those convicted of defiling the Quran or blaspheming Islam and its' founder, the prophet Mohammed.
Masih was born a Christian, but converted to Islam and then reconverted to Christianity.
The blasphemy case started in early 2000 when Masih's employer, Rana Nisah Ahmad, a member of the Sunni Tehrik religious militant group, told police that Masih said he only converted to Islam in order to marry a Muslim woman.
He then reconverted to Christianity and, according to Ahmad's statement, made derogatory remarks about the prophet Mohammed. Masih has been in jail since the accusations were made in May, 2000.
Masih, from a poor family, was provided a state, or "pauper's" lawyer to defend him.
Under Pakistani law, only the word of a Muslim accuser is needed to prosecute a non-Muslim defendant on blasphemy charges. Punishment, if found guilty is death.
The law has been sharply criticized by human rights organizations both in Pakistan and internationally.
The appeals chances of success weren't immediately clear.
"The court's conscious is fully satisfied with the verdict," said Mohammed Rafiq, the trial judge, after announcing the verdict.
Human rights campaigners say the blasphemy law has been frequently used for religious persecution and for settling personal scores against the minority communities.
Muslims make up 97.6 percent of Pakistan's people while Hindus account for 1.5 percent and Christians, among the poorest of the religious group, make up 1.7 percent.
Scores of Christians and members of other minority religions in Pakistan have been convicted and jailed under the blasphemy law. In several cases the death penalty has been handed down but no one has yet been executed.
Pakistan's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, tried to change the blasphemy law in 2000, but changed his mind under pressure of the Muslim clergy.
A U.S. State Department report published in 2000 says that when blasphemy and other cases involving religion are brought to court in Pakistan, extremists often pack the courtroom and make public threats about the dire consequences if acquittals are granted.
A judge was murdered in 1997 after acquitting two Christian defendants. On June 8, this year two Christian advocates were threatened for helping defend Christian accused of blasphemy.