Attack on SL cricket team: mastermind executed

20 December 2014 08:00 am

Two terrorists including a former soldier of the Army’s Medical Corps, Dr Usman who was the mastermind behind the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 were hanged in Pakistan after the government ended a moratorium on the death penalty earlier this week.

The government ended the six-year ban on capital punishment for terror-related cases following a brutal terror attack on a school in Peshawar on Tuesday that killed 149 people, mostly children.

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

A senior official from the prison department also confirmed the executions.

 

Aqil, who uses the name Doctor Usman, was convicted for an attack on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 and was arrested after being injured.

Arshad Mehmood was convicted for his involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt on former president General Pervez Musharraf.

On Thursday, Pakistan's military chief signed death warrants for six terrorists on death row after the government ended the death penalty moratorium on Wednesday.

Just hours later, the government warned prison officials of a possible jailbreak in the restive northwest province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa amid fears that terrorist groups could try to spring high-ranking comrades from jails to avoid the noose.

Pakistan's decision to relinquish a ban on the death penalty in terror-related cases came as the country's political and military leaders have vowed to wipe out the homegrown Islamist insurgency following Tuesday's attack on the army school.