ISLAMABAD: On the directives of the President Asif Ali Zardari, death sentence of seven prisoners has been stopped in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, Dawnnews reported.

The seven prisoners, who were to face death penalty in few days, had requested for presidential pardon, Deputy Superintendent Adiala jail said.

The jail administration received a letter from the President House on Monday to stop the death sentence of the seven prisoners for three months.

Two months earlier, Sindh Minister for Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Prisons, Ayaz Soomro had stated that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would not execute the death penalty against any prisoner in the jails of the province.

“No convict of death sentence will be hanged until the PPP government is in office up to March, 2013,” he had asserted.

According to Amnesty International, Currently 58 nations actively practice capital punishment, and 97 countries have abolished it (the remainder have not used it for 10 years or allow it only in exceptional circumstances such as wartime.