Justice Project Pakistan - Death Penalty Database

Chief Justice Saqib Nisar on Saturday took notice of media reports regarding the scheduled execution of Khizer Hayat, a mentally ill prisoner on death row, and announced to suspend his sentence till further orders.

Moreover, the chief justice also fixed the matter for hearing on Monday [January 14], read a statement issued by the Supreme Court.

Earlier in the day, Hayat's mother Iqbal Bano had moved the court calling for the suspension of his death sentence on the grounds of mental illness.

On Friday, a district and sessions judge in Lahore had scheduled the execution of Hayat — a death-row prisoner diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia — for January 15 at the central jail in Kot Lakhpat.

The request filed by Hayat's mother, which was submitted before the court's human rights cell, was reviewed by Chief Justice Nisar. The petition called for the Supreme Court's attention to the fact that a mentally ill prisoner was being sentenced to death.

It has stated that the judgment passed by Lahore High Court "is not in accordance with law and the Prison Rules".

The petition has also argued that the court has "mixed the conviction with execution and thereby has dismissed the writ petition on wrong premises".

It further argued that neither the medical history of the petitioner's son has been taken into account and nor have the medical board's reports been considered which establish the prisoner's ailment.

The petition notes that "the extensive jail medical records establishing the mental ailment of the condemned prisoner are sufficient to withhold the execution of death sentence till the time the condemned prisoner is fully recovered from the ailment".

Moreover, the petition has also stated: "There is no way that Khizar Hayat’s execution can be carried out in a manner that complies with Pakistan’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Convention against Torture."

Hayat was sentenced to death in 2003 over the shooting of a fellow police officer. He has spent nearly 15 years on death row. He was first diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 2008 by jail medical authorities. In 2010, the jail medical officer recommended that Hayat needed specialised treatment and should be shifted to the psychiatric facility. However, this was never done.

In 2017, the Lahore High Court had stayed the execution of Hayat.

On Monday, a two-member bench comprising Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik and Justice Sardar Tariq Masoof will hear the case.

Hayat's mother, in a letter, requested the chief justice to visit Kot Lakhpat jail's ward for mentally ill prisoners and investigate what medicines were being given to her son.

She pleaded that his medical records be investigated "to determine why his treatment was not being done properly and why his condition was worsening day by day".

"I read in Dawn that a prisoner named Khizar Hayat has been sentenced to be hanged," the chief justice remarked, inquiring from the Punjab attorney general which jail Hayat was serving his sentence in. The official replied it was Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail.

Justice Nisar asked that it be immediately ascertained if Hayat has been diagnosed as mentally ill and sought a report today.

Meanwhile, Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), which has been contesting the case, has been running a campaign on social media, asking President Arif Alvi to "grant mercy" to Hayat. According to Article 45 of the Constitution, the president has the "power to grant pardon, reprieve and respite, and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority".

Earlier on Saturday, a press conference was organised by the Pakistan Psychiatric Society to call to attention the prisoner's execution.

"All medical officers who have examined Khizar Hayat over the years have found him to be actively exhibiting schizophrenic symptoms," said Dr Usman Ahmad Hotiana of the Pakistan Psychiatric Society. "In 2009, Khizar's mental illness got so severe that he got horribly beaten by his fellow prisoners. His injuries were severe enough to require surgeries. After that, he was put in solitary confinement."

LARKANA: Larkana Model Trial Court Judge Shyam Lal Ladhani on Monday awarded death sentence and life imprisonment to two brothers and also fined them after they were found guilty of killing two women and a man in the name of honour in 2010.

The case against Ashiq Soomro, Ghulam Akbar Soomro, Deedar Soomro, Aijaz, Riaz and Chanisar Soomro was registered at the Waris Dino Mashi police station on the complaint of Ali Hassan Kosh.

The complainant stated that the accused had murdered Mureed Kosh, Sughra Soomro and Safia Soomro in Wasayo Bhutto village on suspicion of extramarital affairs between the man and the two women.

During the trial in the model court, the allegation was proved against Ashiq Soomro and Ghulam Akbar Soomro. The other accused have been declared absconders.

KARACHI: A special anti-terrorism court awarded the death sentence on Thursday to two convicted of being involved in the murder of a man named Zainulabiddin. The court was hearing two cases against accused, Muhammad Jamil Ahmed and Munir Ahmed, pertaining to Zainulabiddin’s murder, police encounter and illegal weapons. The accused were convicted in both the cases.

The court awarded the death sentence to Jamil and Munir in the murder case, and 10 years imprisonment in the case pertaining to police encounter.

According to police, the convicts opened fire outside the house of Justice Zawar Hussain in Gulshan. Trader Zainulabiddin, who was a friend of Justice Hussain’s son, Sarfaraz, died in the firing incident.

The convicts were arrested after a police encounter and the cases against them were registered at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Police Station in 2011.

A condemned prisoner was executed at Kot Lakhpat Jail here on Wednesday. Police said that Muhammad Ashraf had killed three women over matrimonial issue some eighteen years ago.

Masti Gate police had registered the case against the accused and submitted the challan to court.

He was sentenced to death in 2017.

It is difficult to ascertain the total number of death sentences awarded across Pakistan every year since the government does not collect and collate such data. The only statistics available pertain to military courts that have been authorised, under a constitutional amendment passed in 2015, to hear terrorism-related cases. Between January 2015 and May 2018, these courts have given the death sentence to 207 people. Out of these, at least 56 have been executed.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a judgment reviewing the meaning and scope of the term 'terrorism' as defined in the Anti Terrorism Act, 1997 and recommended that Parliament bring changes to the current understanding of the term, which is "too wide".

The 59-page judgment was authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa.

Saudi authorities have beheaded yet another Pakistani citizen, Mohammad Imran, in Shumaisi prison of Jeddah in blatant disregard for norms of justice. When the poor youth from Chichawatni traveled to Saudi Arabia in August 2011 for a labour job, he might have taken the foreign land as the proverbial greener pasture. Upon landing at the airport in Jeddah, however, he was arrested for drug crimes and sentenced to death unheard.

A Peshawar High Court bench on Monday ordered the provincial government to constitute a medical board for examining a prisoner who claimed to be suffering from a mental ailment and was unfit to stand trial in a murder case.

The single-member bench of Justice Mussarat Hilali ordered that the trial court should consider the case of the petitioner, Majid Khan, in the light of the report to be submitted by the medical board.