Rahmat Shah Afridi

Rahmat Shah Afridi (Urdu: رحمت شاہ آفریدی ) is the owner and editor of "Frontier Post" and "Maidan Daily", newspapers based in Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Rahmat Shah Afridi was convicted of drug trafficking and was jailed in 1999.

Rahmat Shah Afridi's case was the first in the legal history of Pakistan in which audio and videotapes were accepted as evidence. The tapes, recorded by the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF), showed Afridi apparently making deals to sell drugs to customers. The two death penalties passed on Afridi in 2001 were commuted to life imprisonment in June 2004 by the Lahore high court, which ruled that hashish trafficking was not a crime punishable by death. Afridi was the first person in Pakistani history to get the death penalty on a hashish trafficking charge.

Rahmat Shah Afridi was released on May 24, 2008 on the orders of newly elected democratic government in Pakistan.

External links

* [http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_4-6-2004_pg7_48 Rehmat Shah Afridi’s case unique in country’s legal history]
* [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27193 Frontier Post editor freed after nine years in prison on trumped-up drugs charges]
* [http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/ Frontier Post]