Four sentenced to death for Lahore prison attack

The convicts were also fined Rs1.8 million rupees each

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday sentenced four militants to death for killing 10 prison staff in an attack in Lahore three years ago, officials said.

The four men belonging to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group with links to al Qaeda, shot dead the officers as they slept during a dawn raid on their hostel in July 2012.

"The court has awarded death sentence to four militants for the 2012 attack on jail staff," special prosecutor Shaikh Saeed told AFP. A court official confirmed the sentences.

The convicts were also fined 1.8 million rupees (18,000 dollars) each, he added.

Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in terror cases in December after Taliban gunmen massacred more than 150 people at a school.

Read: PM lifts ban on death penalty in terrorism cases

The executions could take decades to be carried out, however, because of the lengthy appeals process allowed under Pakistani law.

The four TTP militants, all in their 20s, confessed to carrying out the attack on the residential quarters for prison staff in the densely populated Lahore suburb of Ichra, Saeed said.

After killing 10 during the dawn raid armed with Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades, they then stormed another building where around 30 police prison officers were sleeping.

Many were injured as they fled into neighbouring houses in a bid to save themselves from the volley of bullets, Saeed added.

The four men were arrested about a year after the attack when they were caught with Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades at a bus stand in Lahore.

Pakistan amended its constitution and set up military courts last month for speedy trial of terrorism cases.

Read: Parliament gives thumbs up to military courts

Twenty-four people have been executed since Prime Minister Sharif lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of the December Taliban school massacre in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Heavily armed gunmen went from room to room at the army-run school killing 154 people, most of them children, in an attack that horrified the world.

Read: Our darkest hour

Since June last year the army has been waging a major campaign against strongholds of the TTP and other militants in the North Waziristan tribal area close to Peshawar.

The military says the operation has killed more than 2,000 militants, though the precise number and identity of those killed cannot be verified independently.