Saulat Mirza execution: ATC requested to re-issue death warrant

The stay on Mirza's execution is expiring on April 30.

KARACHI: The Mach jail authorities have written a letter to the anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Karachi to issue a fresh death warrant for condemned prisoner Saulat Mirza.

The ATC-V is likely to give its directions on the intimation received in a few days, said a court official, who requested anonymity. The warrants will probably be issued for a day in the following week.

The jail authorities had faxed a letter to the court on Monday contending that the stay on Mirza's execution was expiring on April 30. President Mamnoon Hussain had halted the execution of the convicted target killer for a month in late March. It was the second time that he dodged death, hours before his hanging.

Mirza was handed capital punishment in 1999 for killing the then managing director of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, Shahid Hamid, his driver Ashraf Brohi, and guard Khan Akbar, in Defence Housing Authority in 1997. He reportedly went into hiding but was nabbed in 1998 when he returned to the city from Bangkok. He was arrested by the then SHO of Gulbahar police station, Chaudhry Aslam. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement had, until recently, claimed him to be their worker. However, a u-turn in the party's approach was observed when MQM chief Altaf Hussain denied even knowing him. Soon after, a video footage was aired in which Mirza was seen making dramatic confessions that he killed Hamid on the directions of the MQM chief received through a former senator and federal minister, Babar Ghauri.

The interior ministry, apparently in a move to reopen the case, formed a high-level investigation team to probe the matter. The report of this team has yet to be released but the stay on Mirza's execution has nearly expired.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2015.