Free at last?

Abdul Rahman...who faced a possible death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity is to be freed after a court Sunday dismissed the case against him, citing a lack of evidence, officials said.
(AP Photo/ Ariana Television via AP Television News)

A.P.: KABUL, Afghanistan - A court on Sunday dismissed the case against an Afghan man facing possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity, officials said, paving the way for his release.

The move eased pressure from the West but raised the dilemma of protecting Abdul Rahman after his release as Islamic clerics have called for him to be killed.

One official said freedom might come as soon as Monday for Rahman, who became a Christian in the 1990s while working for an aid group in neighboring Pakistan.

Muslim extremists, who have demanded death for Rahman as an apostate for rejecting Islam, warned the decision would touch off protests across this religiously conservative country. Some clerics previously vowed to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he was let go.

Rahman was moved to Kabul's notorious high-security Policharki prison Friday after inmates at a jail in central Kabul threatened him, Policharki's warden, Gen. Shahmir Amirpur, said.

The case set off an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. President Bush and others insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.

Authorities have barred journalists from seeing Rahman. But on Sunday, officials gave AP an exclusive tour of Policharki, which houses some 2,000 inmates, including about 350 Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Amirpur said Rahman had been asking guards for a Bible but they had none to give him.

Well, it would be nice if they would just get his Bible out of the evidence locker for him, but at least they're not going to make a martyr out of him.

Now he will have to worry about someone killing him once he's released. It is a dreadful shame that he cannot exercise his "freedom of religion" under Afghanistan's new constitution, so that he may have to live in a self-imposed exile...which is what he did for years, until the Taliban was overthrown.

Some things never change, unfortunately, but we just have to take what we can get sometimes...

Update! A.P.: KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's parliament demanded Wednesday that the government prevent a man who faced the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity from being able to flee the country.

His whereabouts are unknown but he likely is still in the country. The Italian government granted asylum to Rahman after Muslim clerics called for his death.

Afghan lawmakers debated the issue Wednesday and said Rahman should not be allowed to leave the country. However, they did not take a formal vote on the issue.

The plot thickens, and sickens...