been stripped of important safeguards. According to a Karachi-based former anti-terrorism prosecutor,
“[p]olice have fourteen days to submit a charge sheet, so the IOs [investigating officers] are in a hurry, it's
always a rushed job.”91
A closer analysis of ATA prosecutions reveals the overreach of anti-terrorist laws in Pakistan and the
overuse of the death penalty in particular. JPP statistics indicate that in 2014, more than 800 alleged
“terrorists” were on death row due to ATA prosecutions; of these, 256 had no pretense of a link with
terrorism.92 Of the remaining 562 cases, JPP concluded that only 20 percent of those sentenced to death
under the ATA were genuinely “terrorists” as the word is commonly understood—that is, motivated by a
broader political or religious ideology that distinguishes the offense from normal criminal or personal
motives like profit or revenge.93
The charging of Shafqat Hussain94 exemplifies this problem. At the age of 14, Shafqat was accused of
kidnapping, a crime normally heard in ordinary criminal courts under Pakistan's Penal Code.95 However,
because the charge was deemed to have “created a sense of terror in the wider community,” he was
tried in an anti-terrorism court, dramatically altering the trajectory of his case.96 As a minor, Shafqat
should never have been sentenced to death. Further, the prosecution relied almost exclusively on a
confession obtained via torture. Speaking in the National Assembly, Minister of Interior Chaudhry Nisar
Ali Khan admitted that the case was in reality “not connected to terrorism” at all and had more
appropriately “concerned civil society.”97 Even so, Shafqat was ultimately executed for his sentence
under the ATA.98
A “MOST SERIOUS CRIME”:
PAKISTAN'S UNLAWFUL USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY 10