Cynics will call it a pre-election ploy by Berlusconi, but he’s been straightahead all along on issues connected with the “clash of civilizations,” or whatever we want to call it today. From the BBC:

“He is already in Italy. I think he arrived overnight,” Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday, hours after his cabinet approved the asylum plea.

Mr Rahman was freed on Monday after being deemed mentally unfit to stand trial on a charge of apostasy.

It is unclear when he arrived in Italy.

….

Mr Berlusconi told Associated Press Television News: “I say that we are very glad to be able to welcome someone who has been so courageous.”

….

Mr Rahman, who converted 16 years ago while working as an aid worker for an international Christian group, was arrested after police discovered him with a Bible.

An ethnic Tajik originally from the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, Mr Rahman returned to Afghanistan a few years ago.

It is thought that he was denounced by relatives after returning to seek custody of his two daughters. His family alleged he forced them to read the Bible, something he has denied.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Mr Rahman said: “I have done nothing to repent, I respect Afghan law as I respect Islam. But I chose to become a Christian, for myself, for my soul. It is not an offence.”

He sure sounds like a raving looney-tunes to me. Asserting his respect for law, and his respect for Islam, and claiming that this Christianity stuff is something to do with his “soul,” and that it is “not an offence.”

Throw away the key!

Anyhow, the next question is what happens to the Italian embassy in Kabul, and the broader repercussions of letting him go for the Karzai government. And — more important than anything else — how will Christian converts and other non-believers in Islam be treated by the authorities from now on. So far, there appears to be little reason for optimism on that front.

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