The Pakistan Supreme Court Thursday rejected the review petition of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian charged with spying in Pakistan.
Singh's lawyer Rana Abdul Hameed said the apex court rejected the review petition with regard to the death sentence awarded to him in connection with a bomb blast at Yakkigate in Lahore in April 1990 in which three persons were killed, observing that it had been filed too late.
Another review petition in connection with three more bomb blasts in Pakistan's Punjab province in 1990 for which also Singh, 40, has been awarded death sentence is still pending before the apex court.
"We are expecting the court to deliver its order on the other petition in a week, but we have no hope," Rana said.
"Now the only way out appears to be to file a mercy petition before General Pervez Musharraf seeking his pardon," Rana said adding, Singh has already given him permission to file the mercy petition.
Rana said he will soon be drafting a mercy petition, which will be submitted to Musharraf after the Supreme Court delivered its judgement on the second review petition.
Singh, who hails from Amritsar, is currently lodged in the high security Kot Lakhpath jail near Lahore.
According to Singh's lawyer, he was caught by Pakistani police when he "inadvertently" crossed the border and was later implicated in the bomb blast case.
Pakistan's Supreme Court had on August 18, 2005, upheld the death sentence given to Singh for allegedly carrying out three bomb blasts in Lahore and Faislabad in 1990, triggering an uproar in India against the verdict following which Musharraf had promised to look into his mercy plea.
His death sentence in the Yakkigate bomb blast case of 1990 was also upheld by the Supreme Court on September 27, 2005.