Italy has become the first country to offer asylum to an Afghan man who has escaped the death penalty for converting to Christianity, foreign ministry sources said on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini will put the case of Abdul Rahman to a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the sources said.
They said Fini had spoken to Italy's ambassador in Kabul who confirmed that Rahman, 41, had been released overnight and had asked the international community for asylum. The foreign ministry said Fini's move was a reflection of Italy's involvement in the case.
Italy was one of the first countries to appeal for Rahman's release, as soon as it became known that he faced a possible death sentence under Afghanistan's Islamic law, the sharia.
Rahman returned home from Germany after a US-led coalition drove out the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2002.
The United States, Germany and Canada - other countries with peacekeeping or anti-Taliban troops in the country - also issued strong appeals for Rahman under the International Declaration of Human Rights, which Afghanistan's post-Taliban government has signed.
One or all of these countries is also expected to offer to take in Rahman.
The Constitution of Afghanistan, a 99% Muslim nation, stipulates that the country's laws are based on the sharia. Rahman's case has forced the government led by Premier Hamid Karzai into a face-saving solution to meet Western pleas while hoping to appease conservative clerics. Eventually, as tensions mounted and the international outcry increased, the court stopped his trial.
Justice Minister Sarwar Danish said on Tuesday the case had been dismissed for "technical errors" in the prosecution charges.
Another possible way out of the crisis had been a plea of mental infirmity but Rahman refused to go along with this. Rahman's immediate safety is now a priority, foreign officials in Kabul have said.
Angry protests against the prospect of Rahman's release took place in northern and southern Afghanistan on Monday. More unrest is expected, security officials say. As well as Italy, a number of countries are expected to offer Rahman sanctuary.
Wherever he chooses to go, he will be followed by a Taliban fatwah, or religious death sentence, announced on Tuesday.
Rahman's case is believed to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan and highlights the struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam will take four years after the Taliban were toppled. Rahman was arrested last month after his family accused him of becoming a Christian.
He confessed he had converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees. During the international outcry, Pope Benedict XVI also issued an appeal for Afghanistan to respect religious freedom.
He took advantage of the opportunity to press for mutual religious respect from Muslim countries, which have seen anti-Christian protests - also in Afghanistan - as part of a wave of ourtage against a Danish newspaper's cartoons showing
the Prophet Mohamed.
Italy is the de facto EU diplomatic chief in Afghanistan because Austria, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, does not have a mission there. Rome has some 2,000 troops in the 10,000-strong NATO-led International Security and Assistance force (ISAF), which began peacekeeping operations in and near Kabul in 2003. Former Italian president Francesco Cossiga had urged the withdrawal of Italian troops because of the Rahman case.
Neither Fini nor any other government official responded to his call. Italy held ISAF's six-month rotating command until last
month. It is leading the reconstruction of the Afghan judicial system and has also contributed to other reconstruction projects such as roads, hospitals and schools. Germany until recently had the biggest ISAF contingent, almost 3,000 troops. But significant British, Dutch and Canadian reinforcements are on the way as ISAF moves 6,000 troops south to the Pakistan border region.
A bigger US-led coalition of about 20,000 troops is fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in several Afghan regions.
