Skip to main content

Pakistan resumes executions after Peshawar school attack

One of those executed was convicted over an attack on Pakistan's Army HQ in 2009, the other over an assassination attempt on ex-leader Pervez Musharraf.

The UN had earlier urged Pakistan not to resume its executions.

Some 141 people, mostly children, died in the Taliban attack on the Army Public school in Peshawar.

Pakistan's military carried out operations against Taliban units in areas near the border with Afghanistan on Friday, saying it had killed 59 militants.

'Different crimes'

The two executions were carried out in the central city of Faisalabad late on Friday, officials said.

Pakistani media named the two executed men as Aqeel, alias Dr Usman, and Arshad Mehmood.

Usman was arrested during the raid on the Rawalpindi HQ and sentenced to death in 2011.

Mehmood was sentenced to death over the attempt on Mr Musharraf's life in the same city in 2003.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville had earlier urged Pakistan not to resume executions.

He said: "To its great credit, Pakistan has maintained a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 2008," he said, adding that those at risk of imminent execution were unconnected to the "premeditated slaughter" in Peshawar.

"We urge the government not to succumb to widespread calls for revenge, not least because those at most risk of execution in the coming days are people convicted of different crimes."

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on executions in terror cases amid outrage at the massacre of the children.

The country's de facto foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, said the Peshawar attack was his country's own "mini 9/11" and required a sea-change in its fight against terrorism.

Source: BBC, December 19, 2014

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Pakistan Executes Two Terrorists After Lifting Moratorium on Death Penalty

ISLAMABAD: Two convicted terrorists were today hanged in Pakistan just two days after the Nawaz Sharif government ended a moratorium on capital punishment in terror-related cases following the Taliban-perpetrated massacre at a school in Peshawar in which over 130 children were killed.

Aqeel alias Dr Usman, a former serviceman, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of involvement in the attack on Rawalpindi's Army General Headquarters (GHQ) in 2009. He was also convicted for the attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the same year. Arshad Mehmood, also known as Mehrban, was convicted for an assassination attempt on former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

"Yes, two militants Aqeel alias Doctor Usman and Arshad Mehmood have been hanged in Faisalabad jail," Shuja Khanzada, Home Minister of central Punjab province, where executions took place, told AFP.

Four more executions will reportedly take place tomorrow in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore where a high alert has been sounded.

On Thursday, Pakistan's military chief Raheel Sharif signed death warrants for six terrorists on death row. Security officials said the six had been convicted by a military court and were awaiting execution.

The announcement came hours after the government warned prison officials of a possible jailbreak in the restive northwest province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa following the end of the moratorium.

On Wednesday, PM Sharif announced an end to the moratorium on the death penalty in terror-related cases after the Pakistani Taliban attacked a military-run school in Peshawar killed 148 people, mostly children.

The assault in the northwestern city is the deadliest ever terror attack in Pakistan and has shocked the nation.

Political and military leaders have vowed in response to wipe out the homegrown Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands of ordinary Pakistanis in recent years.

Pakistan imposed a de facto moratorium on civilian executions in 2008, though hanging remains on the statute book and judges continue to pass the death sentence.

Only one person was executed since - a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.

Source: NCTV, December 19, 2014

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

Tennessee | Man set to be executed files motion claiming DNA evidence will exonerate him

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Attorneys for death row inmate Tony Carruthers filed a motion in Shelby County Criminal Court seeking immediate DNA testing on evidence they claim will prove his innocence in a 1994 triple murder.  Carruthers is scheduled for execution on May 12. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murders of 24-year-old Marcellos Anderson, 17-year-old Delois Anderson, and 21-year-old Frederick Scarborough. Prosecutors at trial alleged the victims were buried alive in a Memphis cemetery as part of a drug-related robbery.

Florida | Man avoids death penalty in Daytona Beach triple murder

Jerome Anderson shot and killed Antoine Melvin, 42, John Burch, 65, and Patrick Lassiter, 35, in 2023. A man pleaded no contest to a triple-murder in Daytona Beach and was sentenced April 20 to three consecutive life terms in prison as part of a plea deal in which he avoided a possible death sentence. Jerome Anderson, 41, was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the 2023 triple-slaying. Anderson pleaded no contest to the three first-degree murder charges April 20 and, in exchange, Assistant State Attorney Andrew Urbanak agreed not to continue to pursue the death penalty.

Florida Supreme Court upholds death sentence for man who raped & killed girl, babysitter in 1990

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the convictions and death sentences of Joseph Zieler for the 1990 murders of an 11-year-old girl and her babysitter, clearing the way for his execution after decades of the case remaining unsolved. Zieler, 61, was sentenced to death in 2023 for the slayings of Robin Cornell and Lisa Story. The decision by the state’s highest court marks a pivotal moment in one of Southwest Florida’s most notorious cold cases, which saw no progress until a 2016 DNA match linked Zieler to the crime scene.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term:   Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Florida executes Chadwick Scott Willacy

STARKE, Fla. -- A Florida man who set his neighbor on fire after she returned from work to find him burglarizing her home was executed Tuesday evening. Chadwick Scott Willacy, 58, received a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1990 killing of Marlys Sather. It was Florida's fifth execution this year. The curtain to the execution chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6 p.m. time, and the lethal injection got underway two minutes later, after Willacy made a brief statement.

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

SINGAPORE — Singaporean authorities executed Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj at Changi Prison on Thursday, April 16, 2026, following his 2019 conviction for importing 1,009.1 grams of cannabis. Bamadhaj, 41, though some reports have cited his age as 46, was arrested on July 12, 2018, during a routine search at the Woodlands Checkpoint. Officers discovered the narcotics wrapped in plastic and hidden within his vehicle as he attempted to enter Singapore from Malaysia.  Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the threshold for the mandatory death penalty involving cannabis is 500 grams, a limit this shipment exceeded by more than double.

Texas | Death Sentence Overturned After 48 Years

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Thursday that Clarence Jordan’s punishment was unconstitutional  A death sentence handed down by a Harris County jury in 1978 was overturned Thursday by the Court of Criminal Appeals.  Clarence Jordan, 70, has been on Texas Death Row for almost 50 years, serving out one of the longest death sentences in the nation while suffering from intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, his attorney told the Houston Press. 

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”  

Florida death row is shrinking as executions accelerate

During the last 10 years, the number of death row inmates from Brevard county dropped from 12 down to three and soon it will likely be two. Chadwick Willacy, formerly of Palm Bay and who has spent 36 years on death row for the murder of his 58-year-old neighbor Marlys Sather, is set to be executed by lethal injection on April 21. Willacy is 56. Gov. Ron DeSantis has been setting records trying to clear as much of the death row roster as possible ― in 2025, Florida executed 19 inmates, more than twice the number of the previous high of eight in 2014. But the dwindling roster of Brevard death row inmates can also be traced to a misinterpretation by the Florida Supreme Court of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2016 requiring unanimous jury recommendations regarding the death penalty.