Mentally ill prisoner Khizar Hayat passes away

Convict spent spent 16 years on death row

Khizar Hayat, a mentally ill prisoner who spent the last 16 years of his life on death row, has passed away.

According to Justice Project Pakistan, the former police constable, who was convicted in 2001 for killing a fellow policeman, breathed his last on the night of March 21.

Khizar, 56, passed away on the night of March 21 at Jinnah Hospital Lahore.

He was hospitalized in critical condition when he had stopped taking any food or medication. The jail authorities had reported him to be “severely anaemic and hypotensive”. pic.twitter.com/BNDlDg2s97

— Justice Project Pakistan (@JusticeProject_) March 22, 2019

“He was hospitalised in critical condition when he had stopped taking any food or medication,” it said in a statement. “The jail authorities had reported him to be ‘severely anaemic and hypotensive’”.

Hayat’s life was spared after former chief justice Saqib Nisar suspended his 4th execution warrant earlier this year.

The suspension came in the wake of a public campaign #SaveKhizarHayat propelled by the civil society.

Iqbal Bano, the convict’s mother, had moved the court calling for the suspension of his death sentence on the grounds of mental illness.

Hayat was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by jail authorities in 2008. He is survived by four children and his mother.