LHC vacates stay order against executions of five death-row prisoners

The govt had filed a review appeal against the court's decision to stay the executions

RAWALPINDI: The Lahore High Court's (LHC) Rawalpindi bench on Wednesday vacated the stay order on the scheduled executions of five death-row prisoners, who were convicted by a military court for a 2012 attack on an army camp in Gujrat that killed seven military officials.

The court had stayed the executions, immediately after which the federal government filed a review appeal against the decision.

Justice Arshad Mahmood Tabassum while hearing the government's review plea today and after reviewing copies of the military court’s proceedings and judgment asserted the prisoners should be executed.

The convicts – Ehsan Azeem, Asif Idrees, Amir Yousaf, Kamran Aslam, and Umar Nadeem – were scheduled to be sent to the gallows in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail on Monday.

Six prisoners have been hanged since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced last week that a six-year moratorium on the death penalty was being lifted in terror cases.