RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench on Wednesday dismissed the petition of five terrorists, seeking stay order against their death sentences.
The bench accepted the appeal of the federal government against the stay order, and maintained the death sentences for the terrorists including Ihsan Azeem, Asif Idrees, Amir Yousaf, Kamran Aslam and Umar Nadeem.
On Monday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed the Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt and his legal team to proactively pursue cases related to terrorism in situations where courts have granted stay orders against executions.
The directives were issued shortly after the LHC Rawalpindi bench stayed the execution of five prisoners who were awarded the death penalty by a military court for their involvement in an attack on an army camp in Gujrat in 2012.
The government’s legal team after the prime minister’s directives filed review petitions against stay orders so trials could be completed at the earliest.
“We are committed to eliminating terrorism at any cost. No mercy would be accorded to those who have killed our youth, citizens and children,” a federal government spokesman had said.
Following the removal of a ban on death penalty on December 17, six death-row convicts have been hanged till death in Faisalabad district jail after they were found guilty in courts of carrying out terror attacks.
