Pakistani army chief confirms death sentences of 9 suicide

Pakistani Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif on Friday signed death warrants of nine ‘hardcore terrorists’, tried by the military courts, Geo news channel reported.

DG Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Bajwa said on Twitter that the terrorists were involved in killing of civilians as well as of personnel of law enforcement agencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The men were convicted by the military courts established as part of a crackdown on militancy following the Army Public School attack in Peshawar on December 16 last year, in which more than 150 people, mostly children, were killed.

Parliament approved the use of the courts for the next two years, and the Supreme Court endorsed the move last month, rejecting claims it was unconstitutional.

The army announced the first verdicts and sentences from the new courts in April when six militants were condemned to death and another jailed for life, all on terrorism charges.

On August 13, it announced death sentences for seven more militants for their involvement in the Peshawar school massacre and an attack on a bus carrying members of the minority Ismaili community.

Source: MENA