On 6 April 2006 Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld the life sentence of Rehmat Shah Afridi, owner and editor of the English-language Frontier Post and the Urdu daily Maidan, for alleged hashish trafficking.[1] Afridi, in prison since his arrest in 1999, insists the case was fabricated to punish his reporting on the Anti-Narcotics Force.[1][2]
A special anti-narcotics court had sentenced him to death in June 2001 after 21 kilograms of hashish were found in his car outside Lahore’s Pearl Continental hotel and 651 kilograms in a lorry traced to him.[2][3] Two alleged accomplices received life terms.[4] The Lahore High Court commuted the death penalty in June 2004, ruling that hashish trafficking was not punishable by death, and set the term at life imprisonment, normally 25 years in Pakistan.[1][4]
Press-freedom groups called the prosecution politically motivated: Afridi’s paper had accused the ANF of profiting from drug trafficking, and his lawyers said tapes used at trial had been tampered with.[2][3] Amnesty International criticised the weak evidence and his lack of heart treatment in Kot Lakhpat jail.[4] Reporters Without Borders noted that the courts themselves condemned police mishandling of the investigation, including destroyed evidence.[1]