Christian convert eyes Italian haven

ROME - Italy is considering granting asylum to Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who was released from jail in Kabul where he had faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity.

He was staying in a "safe house" after prosecutors dropped the case against him amid intense international pressure. But Rahman will have to flee his country for his own safety, after several leading Muslim clerics called on ordinary Afghans to kill him.

Rahman appealed for help to leave Afghanistan, and he is thought most likely to go to Italy, where the Foreign Minister, Gianfranco Fini, was to ask the Cabinet to grant him asylum.

The case against him was dropped after the prosecution submitted that he was "mentally unfit to stand trial", but that was considered a legal pretext to end the case.

Fini was one of the first foreign politicians to take up the case of Rahman, and Pope Benedict XVI also appealed for his release. Italy hosted former Afghan King Mohammed Zaher Shah during his 30 years in exile. It was reported that Rahman also had the possibility of going to Germany, where he had lived before, and the United Nations said it was trying to help find a country to take him.

- INDEPENDENT