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Taliban warn Pakistan govt over executions after five year moratorium on capital punishment Pakistan to execute two militants after overturning five year moratorium on death penalty; Taliban declares move act of war
Pakistan will execute two jailed militants next week, ending a five-year moratorium on capital punishment, a move condemned by the Pakistani Taliban as an act of war sure to trigger more violence. Pakistan's new government, trying to display its resolve in fighting crime and militancy, overturned the moratorium on the death penalty in June. A senior prison official in the southern province of Sindh told Reuters that four convicted criminals, including two militants from the radical Sunni group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, would be hanged at the Sukkur Jail between August 20 and 22. Another senior jail official identified the two as Attaullah alias Qasim and Mohammad Azam alias Sharif. Both were sentenced to death in July 2004 after being found guilty of killing Shia doctor Ali Raza Peerani in Karachi in 2001. The Taliban responded with fury in a pamphlet distributed in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan where most militant groups are based. "If the prisoners are executed it would amount to a declaration of war on the part of the PML-N's (ruling party) government," said the pamphlet, obtained by Reuters. The government of the new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, overturned the moratorium on the death penalty shortly after coming to power in a May election, a decision condemned by international rights groups such as Amnesty International. "We are opposed to capital punishment. We demand that the death penalty should not be awarded to anyone," I.A. Rehman, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Reuters. Pakistani authorities say capital punishment is key to deterring crime as well as militancy in areas on the Afghan border, where Taliban militants launch daily attacks. Up to 8,000 inmates are believed to languish on death row in dozens of Pakistan's overcrowded prisons. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/78950.aspx
