Pakistan’s Supreme Court approves death sentences issued by military courts

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday approved 16 death sentences for terrorism handed down by military courts, marking the first case in which the high court backed capital punishment meted out by closeddoor military courts.

The five justices, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, ruled that the fundamental rights of those sentenced were not violated and they received a fair trial, high court spokesman Mohamed Yusuf Jan told EFE.

“The ruling concluded that all the legal procedures were followed in the military court trials: the accused had a defense of their choice and there was sufficient proof for the sentences,” Yusuf said.

In their appeal, the 16 people sentenced to death alleged that during the trial, their constitutional rights were violated since they did not have access to a defense of their choice and confessions were obtained illegally, some of them through torture.

Pakistan’s high court has now validated the death sentences handed down by the military courts set up in January 2015 in response to the Taliban attack the previous month on a Peshawar school that killed 151 people, including 125 children.

Military courts have since sentenced 104 people 100 to death and four to life imprisonment in closeddoor trials.

A day after the Peshawar school attack in December 2014, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in terrorismrelated cases and extended it to other crimes in March 2015.

Since then, 424 people have been hanged, most of them for crimes unrelated to terrorism, the nonprofit Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which has condemned the executions, said.