Pak court rejects appeal of paraplegic convict on death row

A Pakistani court on Tuesday dismissed the appeal of a paraplegic man convicted of murder to stay his death sentence, clearing the decks for his execution on Wednesday.

The accused 43-year-old Abdul Basit is now set to be hanged in Faisalabad District Jail.

With his impending hanging, the number of executions will touch 300 since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif following the Pakistani Taliban’s deadly attack on an army school in Peshawar last December that killed 150 people, mostly children.

Lahore High Court Judge Qazi Amin dismissed the appeal of Basit to stay his death warrant terming it “non-maintainable”.

Basit who developed tuberculosis (TB) in 2010 in prison was handed down death sentence in 2009 for killing Asif Nadim. Dismissing his appeal, the judge observed asking who would protect the “right of the victim”. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has appealed to Sharif to stay the execution of Basit.

In a letter to Sharif, the HRCP said it was the third time that execution warrants had been issued for Basit.