ISLAMABAD: A judge in Pakistan has ordered a murderer to be hanged next week, officials said yesterday, in what would be the country’s first civilian execution in six years.
The country has had a de facto moratorium on civilian hangings since 2008.
Only one person has been executed since then, a soldier convicted by court martial and hanged in November 2012.
“A judge has passed an order that a murder convict be hanged,” an official at Adiyala Prison in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjoining Islamabad said.
“Arrangements for the execution on September 18 are being made,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Shoaib Sarwar was given the death penalty in July 1998 for murdering Awais Nawaz in January 1996.
All his appeals in the high court and Supreme Court were rejected, as was a mercy petition to the president, the official said.
Sarwar is currently being held in a jail in the northwestern town of Haripur, some 25 kilometres from Islamabad, but authorities there said they had not yet been informed about the execution.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it was dismayed at the news. AFP
