WHEN he finally arrived home after 18 years of despair and isolation on death row in Pakistan, Mirza-Tahir Hussain managed to muster eight English words of thanks.

“I’m glad to be back home, thank you,” he said.

With his white beard and grey hair, Mr Hussain, from Leeds, looked almost unrecognisable from the 18-year-old who last set foot on British soil in 1988. He was barely able to speak under the weight of his new-found freedom, and so it was left to Sajjad Haider Karim, an MEP, to express Mr Hussain’s gratitude at being spared execution for killing a taxi driver.

“It has been a tremendous strain to be parted from my family,” Mr Karim read from a statement at Heathrow. “I thank God for giving me the faith and strength to persevere. Freedom is a great gift. I want to use this freedom to get to know my family again, to adjust back to living here and to come to terms with my ordeal.”

Mr Hussain thanked President Musharraf for granting him clemency and all those who campaigned for his release, including the Prince of Wales, Tony Blair and human rights organisations.

“My thoughts,” read the last line of the statement, “remain with all the prisoners I have left behind”.

Mr Hussain was reunited with his brother, Amjad, in private, then his mother and sisters, whom he has not seen since his imprisonment.

Mr Hussain has always maintained that Jamshed Khan was killed accidentally.

Amjad Hussain had earlier welcomed the decision to change the death sentence under Islamic law to life imprisonment, telling a press conference at Amnesty International in London: “My brother is overjoyed and he thanks everyone who campaigned for his release. It has been a terrible nightmare and ordeal. I am glad that it is now over and he can come home. He has to make that transition — he will need help, counselling and rehabilitation.”

He said that their mother could not believe that she would finally see her son again. “She told me, ‘I want to have physical possession of him and hold him in my arms — I will believe it when I see him.’ She said she is so looking forward to that reunion.”

In contrast to the very public campaign to save Mr Hussain from the gallows, his release was surrounded by secrecy because of fears that the victim’s family might try to harm him.

Mr Hussain, a former Territorial Army soldier, was released from the grim Rawalpindi Central Jail at about 9pm on Thursday.

Before his return to life as a free man he had to complete several formalities, including the payment of a fine of 200,000 rupees (£1,740) that was outstanding from the murder case.

The relatives of Mr Khan were outraged. “It is a tragedy, a very big tragedy for the family,” Sohbat Khan said from the family home near Peshawar, in North West Frontier Province.

“A murderer has been allowed to go out of the country without meeting the ends of justice.”

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