Pak SC upholds death sentence for Taseer killer

Afzal Khan in Islamabad

The Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld on Wednesday the death sentence for former elite force guard Mumtaz Qadri for killing former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer claiming he committed blasphemy.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa scrapped a plea seeking to revoke Qadri’s death sentence which was first awarded by an anti-terror court and then upheld by the Islamabad High Court.

Taseer was killed in January 2011 in Islamabad’s Kohsar market. Qadri confessed that he killed Taseer because he committed by calling the blasphemy law enacted by military dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq as a black law. The case had assumed special significance because religious lobbies justified the murder. Judges of lower courts were frightened to excuse from hearing the case.

The court rejected the plea by Qadri’s lawyer that blasphemy was a religious issue and anyone can take action if his religious sentiments were hurt.

Earlier on Monday, the Supreme Court has ruled that criticising Pakistan’s blasphemy laws do not amount to committing blasphemy and that the entire defence of Qadri will be irrelevant if his lawyer failed to prove that Taseer committed blasphemy.

Taseer was shot dead after he criticised the blasphemy laws following a visit to Asia Bibi, a Christian women convicted of blasphemy.

After the SC verdict, fate of Qadri has almost been sealed but he still has a thin ray of hope as he can file mercy appeal with the president of Pakistan. He would be hanged if the mercy appeal is rejected and the president is bound to take consent of the relatives of the victim before pardoning a killer.