No death penalty

No death penalty (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Sohail Khan
Thursday, October 10, 2013, Agencies

 

ISLAMABAD: A constitutional petition was filed in the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday seeking conversion of 450 prisoners’ death penalty into imprisonment by cancelling their death warrants.

 

Dr Muhammad Aslam Khaki, advocate of the Supreme Court and jurist consultant of Federal Shariat Court has filed the petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, making federation, Ministry of Interior as well as four provincial governments through their home secretaries as respondents.

 

The petitioner prayed to the court to waive the death penalty of 450 death row prisoners in Pakistani jails who had gone through rigorous imprisonment for the years.

 

He submitted that in 2008, the government without the application or request from such prisoners suspended the execution and the situation was the same even today. There was no fault of the prisoners to remain in such an uncertain situation, he contended.

 

He submitted that the death prisoners in Pakistan and especially the said 450 prisoners had undergone additional punishment of long rigorous imprisonment and the torture of death cells and if the death penalty was executed to them, it would be excess of the punishment. “The said execution of death penalty is addition to the rigorous imprisonment which would amount to double punishment and would be against the fundamental rights and laws”, the petitioner contended.

 

He prayed to the court that the families of these prisoners had been waiting for the punishment for the last five years and consequently had been in deep physical, mental and psychological torture, therefore, their death penalty might be converted into imprisonment by cancelling their death warrants.

 

 

 

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