News / Pakistan

Pakistan lifts ban on death penalty in all capital cases

Tuesday, 10 March 2015 4:26 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 10 March 2015 4:26 PM ]

Pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's South Waziristan region. (File photo)

The Pakistani government has removed a ban on death penalties in all the capital sentences issued by its courts, official sources say.

“The government has lifted the moratorium on the death penalty,” AFP quoted an unnamed senior official at the Pakistani Interior Ministry on Tuesday.

In December 2014, the Pakistani government partially lifted its moratorium on executions for terrorism offences after a massacre at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

“The Interior Ministry has directed the provincial home departments to expedite the executions of all condemned prisoners whose mercy petitions have been rejected,” the ministry official added.

Akbar Hussain Durrani, the home secretary of southwestern Baluchistan Province, also confirmed that the government has called for the resumption of the executions.

“We have received a letter from federal government asking to expedite all death penalty cases for executions whose mercy petitions have been rejected,” Durrani said.

On December 16, a group of pro-Taliban militants stormed an army-run school in Peshawar and killed about 150 people, including 132 students. Some 120 students were also injured in the raid.

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the assault, saying it was carried out in retaliation for the Pakistani army’s major military offensive in North Waziristan tribal area which borders Afghanistan.

Following the Peshawar attack, Pakistan lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in place for about six years. Since then, the Pakistani government has hanged as many as 24 convicts.

IA/MKA/SS

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