Pakistan’s top court has halted the executions of six suspects sentenced by military courts on charges ranging from terrorism, murder to suicide bombing and kidnapping for ransom, after allegations that the legal proceedings against them were unlawful.
Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan followed a petition raised by an organisation of lawyers that challenged a recently adopted constitutional amendment allowing military courts to try suspects wanted on terror charges.
The court adjourned the hearing until April 22 to give the government time to submit its reply.
The death sentences handed down to the six in early April marked the first such ruling since Pakistan lifted a moratorium on the death penalty last December following a Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that killed 150 people, mostly children.
IANS adds:
Pakistan hangs three murder convicts
In a separate development, three murder convicts were hanged in Pakistan's Punjab province on Thursday, a media report said.
Two convicts, Ejaz and Abdul Jabbar, were executed in the Gujranwala Central Jail, Geo News reported. While Ejaz was sentenced for killing a man in 1995, Jabbar was convicted for a murder in 2001.
The third convict, Zafar Iqbal, was executed in Faisalabad Central Jail. He was found guilty of killing a woman in 2005.
Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10.
Initially, executions were resumed only for terrorism offences in the wake of Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar which claimed more than 150 lives, mostly school children, on December 16, 2014
