Two murderers to hang on 23rd

Karachi
An anti-terrorism court issued black warrants for two death-row prisoners on Friday for their execution on April 23.
Moinuddin and Muhammad Azam were convicted for killing a citizen, Sultan, in Mominabad in 1999 while committing a robbery. The two men were tried in an anti-terrorism court and handed down the capital punishment. An anti-terrorism court has powers to award the death penalty in cases where an act of terrorism has been proved under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
In such cases, when an act is committed at a public place or in a way that creates terror among the victims or others, the trial court can award the death punishment and law experts say that the punishment is not compoundable and cannot be pardoned by the heirs of the victim.
In the recent past, families of death-row prisoners had approached the victims’ heirs but the courts had rejected the convicts’ stance of qisas and dayat.
In the case of Moinuddin and Azam, the appeals of the two men were rejected by the high court and later by the apex court. Finally, the two had sent mercy petitions to the president of Pakistan but they too were dismissed. In February, two death row prisoners, Mohammad Azam alias Sharif and Attaullah alias Qasim, both members of the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, were hanged at the Karachi central prison.
The two were sentenced to death by a court in 2004 after they were found guilty of killing Dr Ali Raza Peerani in Soldier Bazaar in June 2001.
Over 60 death row prisoners have been executed since December last year after the government lifted a moratorium on death penalties after a brutal attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. In that incident, Taliban militants had gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children. After that incident, fresh laws were introduced to try terrorists and other criminals and military courts were also set up.