Attack on ISI office: ATC hands down death penalty to TTP activists

Lahore High Court also rejects appeal of a death row prisoner to be hanged on Jan 15

MULTAN: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday handed down the death penalty to four Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) operatives for involvement in a brazen attack on the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) office in Multan on December 8, 2009.

In the said attack, two suicide attackers – driving a pick-up truck packed with explosives – had tried to cross security checkpoints near a local office of the ISI. When challenged, the attackers had detonated their car bomb prematurely and killed seven people, including five civilians and two soldiers. The ATC judge awarded death sentences to four convicts –Abdur Raheem, Hafiz Suleman, Sajjad and Muhammad Afzal – while one of their companions, Ijaz, was given life imprisonment for providing logistical support to the terrorists.

The verdict was announced in a court established inside Multan’s Central Prison due to security threats to the judge. In the past, seven judges had recused themselves from the case, citing personal reasons.

These are the first death penalties awarded after government lifted a moratorium on capital punishment in the wake of a terror attack on a school in Peshawar.

In another hearing, Lahore High Court’s Multan bench rejected an appeal to review the death sentence awarded to a Zahid Hussain alias Zahida by an ATC. Hussain has been issued death warrant and will be executed in Lahore’s Central Prison in the morning of January 15.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.