Amir Abdur Rehman Cheema

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Amir Abdur Rehman Cheema (Urdu: عامر عبد الرحمن چیمہ), a 28-year-old Pakistani textile engineering student, of the Jatt/Cheema clan who committed suicide on 1 May 2006, in Moabit prison in Berlin, in German police custody, awaiting trial. Cheema had been arrested on 20 March 2006, as he entered the office building of Die Welt newspaper, armed with a large knife and was accosted by security guards who fought with him.[1] Cheema admitted to intentions to kill editor Roger Köppel for reprinting cartoons of Muhammad.

The circumstances of his death were disputed: German authorities and deputy head of Pakistan's embassy in Berlin said that he committed suicide, hanging himself with a noose made from his garments. The man's family rejected this and instead told media that he was tortured to death, although offered no evidence in support. A motion was brought forward in Pakistan's national assembly by Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal to discuss Cheema's death.

The post-mortem examination, carried out by the director of the Berlin Institute of Forensic and Social Medicine in the presence of two Pakistani officials, found no signs of torture.[2]

Cheema's body was repatriated to Saroki district Hafiz Abad, Punjab on 13 May, where 50,000 people attended his funeral[3].