KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court issued on Tuesday a fresh black warrant for the execution of Saulat Mirza in a triple murder case and asked the jail authorities to send him to the gallows on April 1.

The ATC had condemned Saulat Ali Khan, better known as Saulat Mirza, a worker of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, to death in 1999 for murdering the then managing director of the Karachi Electric Supply Company Shahid Hamid, his driver, and guard in 1997 in the Defence Housing Authority.

On the request of jail authorities, the judge Mohammad Javed Alam of ATC-V reissued the black warrant and asked the superintendent of Mach jail in Balochistan to hang him till death at 5:30am on April 1 as per jail manual. The court also asked the jail authorities to carry out the execution under the supervision of a judicial magistrate after observing all the requisite requirements and submit compliance report after executing the sentence.

On March 21, the superintendent of Mach prison had informed the trial court through a letter that implementation of the previous black warrant, issued on March 11 for hanging the condemned prisoner on March 19, had been deferred by the president for three days a few hours before the scheduled execution because what he claimed poor health of the death row prisoner.

The letter said that since the jail authorities had not received any further stay order, a fresh black warrant should be issued for the execution.

It may be recalled that the president had deferred the execution merely hours before the convict was to be hanged on the morning of March 19 after TV news channels aired a video tape of the convict in which he made sensational claims against his party leadership for being involved in target killings and other violent crimes.

The ATC-V had sentenced Mirza to death in May 1999. The Sindh High Court had dismissed his appeal in 2000 and the Supreme Court turned down his plea against capital punishment in 2001, while a review petition was rejected by the apex court in 2004. Over a decade-old mercy petition of the convict was turned down by the president a few weeks ago.

Published in Dawn March 25th , 2015

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