Nick of time: Death sentence of inmate voided

HARIPUR: A prisoner was saved from going to the gallows and released from Central Prison Haripur on Friday. The Rawalpindi registry of the Lahore High Court declared the death penalty given to Fazal Hameed by a trial court as null and void as the prosecution failed to prove his involvement in terrorist activities. According to the jail records of Fazal Hameed, he was arrested on charges of being a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activist and for carrying out a gun and grenade attack on the Shah-e-Najaf Imambargah on Khayaban-e-Sir Syed in Rawalpindi. Eleven people were killed and 30 others were injured in the incident on February 26, 2002. On December 9, 2004, a trial court handed down death sentences to Fazal Hameed and his three accomplices Habibullah, Tahir Mehmood and Hafiz Naseer Ahmed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2015.