The Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Saturday awarded the death penalty to Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the self-confessed murderer of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer.
Taseer was an outspoken critic of the blasphemy law and Qadri was viewed as a hero by many who thought Taseer himself was a blasphemer by calling for the law’s reform. Qadri had said he was enforcing divine law by murdering a “blasphemer”. ATC Judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah sentenced Qadri to death on two counts – Section 302 of Pakistan Penal Court (PPC) and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) – during the in-camera trial at Adiyala Jail.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 200,000 on Qadri under the two offences of murder and terrorism. Qadri had earlier confessed in court that he had killed the former Punjab governor for “his blasphemous statements”. Raja Shujaur Rehman, one of the lawyers for Qadri, said the ATC judge’s verdict was unprecedented. He said during Saturday’s proceedings, the court had to listen to the arguments of the prosecution and close the case, instead of delivering its verdict. He said the court did not inform the defence lawyer about the judge’s departure schedule for Adiyala Jail to take up the case. He said that the defence would to file a plea with the court under Section 23 of ATA. Whether Qadri will hang will remain open even after the appeals process is exhausted. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan has had an informal moratorium on executions in place since late 2008, before which it had hanged at least 36 people that year.
Pakistan has been increasingly criticised in the West for its tough anti-blasphemy laws and over the persecution of the tiny non-Muslim minority. But the government says it has no intention of reforming the 1986 law, underscoring the power of the hardline religious right. Taseer’s killing was the most high-profile political assassination in Pakistan since former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered in a gun and suicide attack on a Rawalpindi election rally in December 2007. Two months after Taseer’s murder, Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was murdered by the Taliban on March 2 for demanding changes to the blasphemy law. After the Bhatti assassination, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said Pakistan was “poisoned by extremism”.
To the gallows
