"Got Goat?"

Let's say you are being charged of corruption but thanks to an amnesty deal, you are free to go about your business without any fear of prosecution. Suddenly that amnesty deal is nullified, made ineffective. What do you do? Well, sacrifice a goat of course!

Apparently, that is what President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan is doing (at least in the eyes of his critics). Sadaqah, an Islamic term for "voluntary charity" is any act of generosity which may be in a form of money or meat of a slaughtered animal given out to the poor to ward off evil or misfortune.

President Zardari is the husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. In 2007, an agreement for amnesty also known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, was made between Benazir Bhutto and then-President Pervez Musharraf allowing Bhutto and Zardari, to return to Pakistan without facing prosecution over alleged corruption. Last December 2009, the Washington Post reported the decision of the Supreme Court nullifying the amnesty deal.

As far as slaughtering animals for good luck, I know that some people in the Philippines still do slaughter animals for good luck, as in slaughtering chicken and letting the blood drip on foundations of houses or buildings before they are built.