Jan. 30
PAKISTAN:
Capital punishment: 2nd Haripur prison inmate to be executed
Shoaib Sarwar is likely to be moved to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi within the
next 48 hours where he is expected to be hanged soon after, said insiders on
Friday. A death warrant was issued and has been received by Central Prison
Haripur authorities.
Shoaib has been incarcerated at Haripur jail since the past five years and is
among 140 prisoners on death row. A resident of Wah Cantt and the son of Ghulam
Sarwar, the inmate was prosecuted for murdering Awais Nawaz from the same area
on January 21, 1996.
"Yes, we have received Shoaib's death warrant from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa home
department and as he is from Rawalpindi, he will be executed in his native
district," said an official of Haripur jail, requesting anonymity. The Haripur
prison recently constructed its own gallows so it would execute the death
penalty there.
According to insiders familiar with the matter, Shoaib will be shifted to
Adiala jail within the next 48 hours and arrangements were being made to ensure
he has one last meeting with his family.
A Rawalpindi district judge sentenced him to death in the 1st week of July,
1998. His execution was put off with 8,500 other condemned prisoners across
Pakistan following the moratorium by the Pakistan Peoples Party-led central
government in 2008.
On September 6, 2014, Rawalpindi district and sessions judge Abdul Sattar
issued a black warrant for Shoaib, asking Adiala jail authorities to execute
him on September 18. However, a Rawalpindi bench of Lahore High Court placed a
stay order on his death penalty two days prior to the day of execution. The
order was based on the fact that Shoaib was part of a case against the death
penalty pending with the apex court and that due to the moratorium, Shoaib had
already spent 18 years - the equivalent of a life sentence - and so he should
not be hanged till the case with the apex court was disposed.
The stay order was vacated, said Haripur jail authorities and the President of
Pakistan turned down Shoaib's mercy petition, leaving the previous order of the
Rawalpindi district judge valid. The fresh warrant was received on Thursday
through the K-P home department.
Shoaib will be the 1st convict of a non-terrorism related case and the 2nd
death row prisoner from Haripur jail to be hanged. Niaz Muhammad, a former
junior Pakistan Air Force technician, was hanged in Peshawar in the early hours
of January 1, 2015. He was sentenced to death in a terrorism case, convicted of
attempting to attack former military ruler General (retd) Pervez Musharraf.
(source: Express Tribune)
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