SC upholds 26 death sentences in a month

Published October 20, 2001

ISLAMABAD, Oct 19: The Supreme Court has announced that it had upheld capital punishment awarded to 26 convicts including 14 terrorists, and sending other 31 to jail to undergo life imprisonment in last one month.

MA Farooqi, Registrar Supreme Court, in an announcement stated that different benches of the Supreme Court, in the last four weeks, decided 150 cases including 78 appeals by those convicted on the charges of terrorism under ATA and Suppression of Terrorist Activities Act.

The SC benches upheld high court verdicts awarding death sentence to 14 terrorists and 12 others who were convicted under the general criminal laws.

Separating the cases of those tried under ATA and STA, the official announcement said, that total 78 of terrorist were decided in which 14 death sentences were upheld.

In 17 other cases life imprisonment was upheld. Only in one case the Supreme Court recorded acquittal order.

Under the general criminal laws, another 72 cases were decided, upholding the death sentence of 12 convicts. In 14 other cases life imprisonments were upheld and 24 other cases involving sentence up to 20 years were decided.

The remaining cases involving terrorism along with other cases of different categories have been fixed for hearing in the week commencing Oct 15 for which cause list has been issued.