Pakistan, the world’s third most prolific executioner, is set to hang an elderly paralysed murder convict following the rejection of his mercy appeal by the President.
Khan Iqbal, who is in his 80s, was arrested in a murder case on August 1, 1996, and was convicted and sentenced to death by the lower courts.
Iqbal is lodged in Adiala jail of garrison city of Rawalpindi where he will be sent to the gallows on Saturday, Dawn reported.
“After the sessions court issued his black warrants, the jail authorities have asked his family to meet the convict on Friday at Adiala jail,” it said.
The convict’s son Bilal Khan has said that since his father is in his 80s and had been paralysed during imprisonment, he had been trying to reach a settlement with the family of the person murdered by his father.
He claimed that his father had been at home until last year but was directed to report to the jail after the family of the deceased complained to the sessions court.
He said his father had been in Kohat jail until 2013 when, somehow, he managed to flee while being shifted to another jail. However, he did not disclose how his father remained at home for three years.
The military courts were set up in Pakistan to expedite the trial process for terror-related offences following the December 2014 Taliban’s massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar in which over 150 people, mostly school children, were killed.
Following the attack, the government lifted the moratorium on the death penalty and the Parliament passed the 21st amendment which established military courts.
According to an official of the Executive Director of Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), over 400 persons have been executed in two years.
Pakistan has refused to stop hangings despite mounting criticism by the human rights groups, the UN and the EU against implementation of death penalty.
There are about 8,000 death row prisoners in Pakistan.
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