Pakistan is to end its moratorium on the death penalty in terror-related cases, the prime minister’s office announced Wednesday, a day after Taleban militants killed 148 people in an attack on a school.
The assault on the army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar, the deadliest terror attack in Pakistan’s history, has triggered widespread revulsion.
“The prime minister has approved abolishment of moratorium on the execution of death penalty in terrorism-related cases,” an official from Prime Minister’s office said.
Hanging remains on the Pakistani statute book and judges continue to pass the death sentence, but a de facto moratorium on civilian executions has been in place since 2008.
Only one person has been executed since then, a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.
Meanwhile, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh denounced the Taleban’s attack as a criminal aggression. “It’s appalling to see many people being killed in Muslim countries these days and this should wake up Muslims as it’s a dangerous action and a big crime,” the mufti said while emphasizing the Islamic instructions to protect the life, honor and wealth of people.
“Shedding blood of people without any genuine and rightful reason is injustice, aggression and the folly of ignorance,” he said.
Rights campaign group Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process.
Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan argue that it is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy.
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