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An update on the story of Mirza Tahir Hussain, the Briton jailed 18 years ago after being convicted of murder, and facing execution in Pakistan. The circumstances of his conviction remain, to say the least, unclear.

You'll remember that his execution was originally scheduled to take place while Prince Charles was visiting Pakistan, and was postponed for obvious reasons (the government of Pakistan did not wish to execute a British national which the heir to the throne was in town). Good news for Mirza and his family: following significant international attention to his case, which was assisted by an intervention by Prince Charles, his punishment has been commuted to a life sentence.

I don't know if Prince Charles conspired to be in Pakistan on the original date of execution to secure a stay of execution (that seems unlikely) or if the coincidence of his visit and the date of the execution was accidental (that seems much more likely). If the coincidence was merely serendipity, I'm sure Mirza will be counting himself very lucky indeed, and perhaps reflecting on the fact that he would now, in all likelihood, be dead if Charles's visit had taken place a month earlier or later than his scheduled date of execution.

Perhaps Prince Charles should regularly plan royal tours to jurisdictions where capital punishment is still practised, and arrange for his visits to coincide with the dates of scheduled executions of British citizens. How many other lives could he save by shaming other countries into commutations?

STOP PRESS: 17 November: Mirza Tahir Hussain from prison and is returning home to his family in the UK.