Ex–air force man hanged for trying to kill Musharraf

Islamabad, December 31: A former Pakistan Air Force junior technician, convicted for trying to assassite then president Pervez Musharraf, was executed on Wednesday, a media report said. Niaz Mohammad was hanged at the Peshawar Central Prison, Dawn online reported. A resident of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’S Swabi district, Mohammad was kept at the Haripur Central Prison until Tuesday and flown to Peshawar in a helicopter.

Authorities had deployed police and soldiers in and around the jail fearing a terror attack. The road on which the jail is situated was closed to traffic Tuesday night. The last death sentence at the Peshawar prison was carried out on June 6, 2006 when a prisoner, Mawas Khan, was hanged. A court martial convicted six air force personnel for trying to assassite Musharraf near Jhanda Chichi bridge in Rawalpindi on December 14, 2003. Since December 19, four of them – Adn Rashid, Khalid Mehmood, Karam Din and wazish – have been executed. A sixth convict, srullah, has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Pakistan has begun executing prisoners sentenced to death for terror related incidents since terrorists massacred over 140 students and staff in an army–run school in Peshawar on December 16.  (IANS)