Attacks on lawyers: Law officer to explain delays in executions

SHCBA president says failure to execute convicts encouraged others to commit crime.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed the provincial law officer to explain what steps the government has taken to curb the ongoing target killings in Karachi.

The law officer will also explain why the executions of death sentences is being delayed. The bench, headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, directed the law officer to file comments by July 23.

Last week, the federal interior ministry had informed the court that the president, who is legally empowered to accept or reject mercy appeals of condemned prisoners, had stayed executions till June 30, and the ministry was reviewing this policy. The issue of targeted killings and the delays in execution of convicts - who number around 130 in the province - has been taken up in the high court by the SHC Bar Association.



SHCBA president Mustafa Lakhani stated that the law and order situation in Karachi was deteriorating and the lives and properties of citizens, including lawyers, were not safe. “Since 2007, over 40 lawyers have been assassinated in Karachi,” he said.

Lakhani pointed out that death sentences awarded to the criminals were not being executed, which, according to him, encouraged other criminals to commit offences.

On Thursday, the provincial police chief had prepared a report about the progress made in the lawyers’ killings cases. “Out of the 29 cases of lawyers’ killings in targeted attacks, culprits have been arrested in 15 cases,” disclosed Additional IG (Legal) Ali Sher Jakhrani. He informed that charge sheets against the arrested culprits had been filed with the concerned courts, where the proceedings were pending. Investigations into 13 other cases are underway, while efforts are afoot to seek details of one case, Jakhrani said. The association’s lawyer requested time to go through the report.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2013.