Two Pakistani terrorists to be hanged Dec 23

Islamabad, Dec 20: A Pakistani anti-terrorism court ordered the execution of two terrorists who had been sentenced to death in 2004 on charges of sectarian murder, Dawn online reported on Saturday.

The court on Friday directed authorities at Sindh province's Sukkur central jail to carry out the execution of Attaullah and Mohammad Azam, terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi terror group, on Dec 23 at 6.30 a.m.

In a targeted attack, the convicts had killed Ali Raza Peerani when he came out of his clinic in Karachi.

The court had ordered their execution several times in the past but their hanging had been repeatedly deferred on stay orders issued from the presidency.

The Sukkur jail authorities in Karachi also requested another anti-terrorism court to order the execution of two prisoners, Behram Khan and Shafqat Hussain, in separate cases.

Behram was sentenced to death in 2003 for killing a lawyer inside a court room of the Sindh High Court, while Shafqat was found guilty of kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy in 2004.

Their hanging, too, was deferred by the presidency.

On Friday, two convicted terrorists were executed after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the 2008 moratorium on the death penalty in wake of the Peshawar school attack which killed 148 people, including 132 children.

The executed terrorists were Usman, who was sentenced to death for his role in the 2009 attack in the Pakistan Army headquarters in Rawalpindi and Arshad Mehmood, a security force personnel, for his involvement in an 2003 assassination bid on then military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.

Both executions took place in Faisalabad.

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

IANS