PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench has stayed the execution of a militancy convict and suspended the sentence of death awarded to him by a military court on account of different acts of terrorism, including a suicide attack on residence of an MNA around a decade ago.

The bench of Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Ms Mussarat Hilali issued notices to the ministries of defence and interior and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home department and sought record of the case after preliminary hearing of a writ petition filed by a resident of Dera Ismail Khan, Mohammad Aziz, who challenged the conviction of his brother Mohammad Bashir.

The bench fixed Oct 3 for next hearing.

The petitioner claimed that his brother was innocent and was falsely implicated in the cases mentioned by the Inter Services Public Relations against him.

He alleged that his brother was taken into custody in 2009 and had remained a missing person and now they came to know that he was convicted by a military court.

The ISPR in a press release on Sept 10 had announced the conviction of 13 ‘hardcore terrorists’ by the military courts, including the present detainee.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2018