Govt lifts death penalty moratorium completely: officials

Interior ministry directs provincial govts to proceed with hangings for prisoners who exhausted all avenues of appeal

ISLAMABAD: The interior ministry has lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases, officials said Tuesday, after restarting executions for terrorism offences in the wake of the Peshawar school massacre.

The interior ministry has directed provincial governments to proceed with hangings for prisoners who had exhausted all avenues of appeal and clemency, a senior interior ministry official told AFP.

Another government official confirmed the news.

Read: Govt to completely lift moratorium on death penalty

Pakistan has hanged 24 convicts since resuming executions in December after Taliban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest.

The partial lifting of the moratorium only applied to those convicted of terrorism offences, but officials said it has now been extended.

"The government has lifted the moratorium on the death penality," the senior interior ministry official told AFP.

"The interior ministry has directed the provincial home departments to expedite the executions of all condemned prisoners whose mercy petitions have been rejected by the president."

Until December's resumption, there had been no civilian hangings in Pakistan since 2008.

Only one person was executed in that time -- a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.

Rights campaign group Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process.

Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan argue that it is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy.

The courts system is notoriously slow, with cases frequently dragging on for years, and there is a heavy reliance on witness testimony and very little protection for judges and prosecutors.

This means terror cases are hard to prosecute, as extremists are able to intimidate witnesses and lawyers into dropping charges

Rights groups and the European Union have been highly critical of the resumption of executions.

Rights groups condemn lifting of moratorium

Criticising the government’s decision, human rights organisations said people who witnessed ‘unfair’ trials will now fall prey to the penalty.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairperson Zohra Yusuf while speaking to The Express Tribune said the quality of investigation and prosecution was poor in the country.

“A person is tortured to confess and on that confession, he may be handed down the death penalty. There is no way to bring him back to life in case he had an unfair trial or was forced to confess.”

According to the HRCP, there are currently around 8,300 prisoners on the death row in the country.

Citing the case of Shafqat Hussain, Yusuf said in the absence of a good lawyer, no one raised the issue of juvenility when Shafqat was awarded the death penalty by the ATC in 2004 at the age of 14.

“With the lifting of the moratorium, I foresee more hangings in future which is sad,” she added.

Further, executive director of the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) Sarah Belal said the government has gone back on its word in two months when it said only terrorists would be hanged.

“There is immeasurable injustice in Pakistan’s criminal justice system, with a rampant culture of police torture, inadequate counsel and unfair trials. Despite knowing this, the government has irresponsibly brought back capital punishment, condemning the lives of its most vulnerable citizens and possibly children to death,” Belal said in a statement.