June 22, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 21: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday announced that his government would recommend to the president to commute death sentences of thousands of prisoners into life imprisonment as part of a birthday tribute to slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.

Paying tribute to Ms Bhutto during a session of the National Assembly, the prime minister said he had already sent an advice to the president for a 90-day remission to prisoners of Adiala jail.

He asked the interior ministry to send a summary to the president for the conversion of capital punishment into life imprisonment.

According to a human rights group, over 7,000 prisoners are on death rows in Pakistan.

He said that being an inmate of Adiala jail himself he wanted to provide relief to other inmates of the jail as mark of homage to Ms Bhutto.

Analysts said the decision might require a legislation to permanently convert capital punishment into life imprisonment which had been a longstanding demand of the US, Europe and Britain.

According to reports, 62 countries maintain death penalty in both law and practice, while 92 countries have abolished it. Ten countries have retained it for crimes committed in time of war.

On December 18 last year, Pakistan had voted against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.

Sources said that during the first PPP government in the 1970s, the life imprisonment had been enhanced to 25 years from 14 years with the aim that the capital punishment would be abolished.

However, the Ziaul Haq regime kept both life sentences of 25 years and death penalty intact.

The sources said that immediate beneficiary of the decision would be Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national condemned to death for his alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in Pakistan in 1990.

Prime Minister Gilani also announced setting up a “Benazir Trust” aimed at providing education and catering to the needs of children whose parents have died in terror-related incidents.

He announced renaming Murree Road and Rawalpindi General Hospital where the slain leader breathed her last after Benazir Bhutto. He said that a monument of Ms Bhutto would be raised at the site of the assassination, adding that Rs50 million had been approved for renovating a hospital on the Murree Road.The prime minister said a special programme would be launched to control Hepatitis.

“The present coalition government is a symbol of her initiative on national reconciliation,” he said.

Earlier at the outset of the

session, Information Minister Sherry Rehman requested the house to observe a two-minute silence in remembrance of the late PPP leader and offer fateha for her departed soul.

Lawmakers from both opposition and treasury benches paid tribute to the PPP leader for her lifelong struggle for the cause of democracy.Riaz Pirzada of the PML-Q, Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi of the MQM, former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, PML-N’s Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, Shabaz Bhatti, Maulana Ataur Rahman of the JUI-F and Aftab Shaban Mirani and Beelam Hasnain of the PPP paid homage to the personage of Benazir Bhutto.

Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza said since there was a long list of speakers who wanted to pay homage to Ms Bhutto, it would be better that all MPs write their expressions in a register kept in the speaker’s chamber.