Eight Pakistani terror convicts to be executed

Islamabad, January 4: A Pakistan court has issued death warrants against eight convicts, among them an Al Qaeda member and four other militants, a media report said Sunday. Al Qaeda member Zulfikar Ali was sentenced in March 2004 for killing two policemen near the US consulate in Karachi in 2003, Dawn reported. The execution warrants were also issued for four Lashkar–e–Jhangvi militants — Mohammad Shahid Hanif, Mohammad Talha Hussain, Khalil Ahmed, and Mohammad Saeed. Hanif, Hussain and Ahmed were sentenced to death in April 2002 for killing a defence ministry official in July 2001. Saeed was awarded death sentence in April 2001 for murdering a retired deputy superintendent of police and his young son.

The other two convicts were Behram Khan, sentenced in June 2003, and Shafqat Hussain, sentenced for killing a minor boy after kidpping him. Another convict was Ahmed Ali who was sentenced in 1998 for killing three men. He will be hanged on January 7. Hanif, Mohammad Talha Hussain, Ahmed, Khan and Zulfikar Ali will be hanged on January 13, Shafqat Hussain, on January 14, and Saeed, on January 15,.

Last December, Pakistan ended its moratorium on death pelty in terror–related cases, following a terrorist attack on an army run Peshawar school in the same month. The attack by Tehreek–e–Taliban Pakistan militants left 150 people, including 140 school children and teachers, killed. Seven convicts have been hanged so far in Pakistan after the moratorium on the death pelty was lifted by the waz Sharif–led government. (IANS)