Asian Lite News Archive

Pakistan begin terror executions

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A Pakistani child attends a protest to condemn Tuesday's Taliban attack on the Army Public School, in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar on Dec. 18, 2014. More then 140 people, the vast majority children, were killed at an army-run school in northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Dec.16 in an attack by armed militants.
A Pakistani child attends a protest to condemn Tuesday’s Taliban attack on the Army Public School, in northwest Pakistan’s Peshawar on Dec. 18, 2014. More then 140 people, the vast majority children, were killed at an army-run school in northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Dec.16 in an attack by armed militants.

Two convicted Pakistani terrorists were executed , in the first capital punishment carried out in the country since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the 2008 moratorium on the death penalty in wake of the Peshawar school attack.

The executed terrorists were Usman, a former soldier of the Army Medical Corps who was sentenced to death for his role in the 2009 attack in the Pakistan Army headquarters in Rawalpindi and Arshad Mehmood, also a security force personnel, for involvement in an 2003 assassination bid on then military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Dawn online reported.

Both executions took place in Faisalabad.

The death warrants were signed by Army Chief General Raheel Sharif late Thursday night.

Ahead of the executions, security had been tightened at Faisalabad’s central and district prisons.

The prime minister had lifted the moratorium on death penalty a day after terrorists Tuesday attacked Peshawar’s Army Public School, killing 141 people, most of them children.

Eleven soldiers had lost their lives in the Oct 10, 2009 attack when 10 heavily-armed militants, loaded with bombs, stormed the army’s general headquarters.

An injured Usman, who was captured, was sentenced to death in 2011 by a military court.

Mehmood, who was a trooper, was among the five sentenced to death for their role in the Christmas Day 2003 assassination attempt on Musharraf’s life – the second in that month.

Musharraf narrowly escaped the bid when two suicide car bombers rammed his motorcade on Dec 25, 2003, in Rawalpindi. Fifteen people were killed in that attack.