[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 16



PAKISTAN:

Rights group urges Pakistan not to hang mentally ill man


Pakistan must not hang a mentally ill man suffering from paranoid 
schizophrenia, a rights group said today, after a court issued a warrant for 
his execution next week.

Death row prisoner, Imdad Ali, who is around 50 years old, was sentenced to 
death for the murder of a religious teacher in 2002.

"Imdad Ali is mentally ill and has suffered years without proper treatment," a 
report by local watchdog the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) said, adding he had 
been diagnosed as a "paranoid schizophrenic".

JPP said it had filed an appeal against a Lahore High Court decision last month 
which dismissed pleas that Ali could not be executed on the basis of his mental 
illness.

His medical condition should be looked into, as well as the extenuating 
circumstances that had aggravated his mental illness during his lengthy time on 
death row, the organisation argued.

Ali's execution has been scheduled for September 20, it said. Prison 
authorities have sent a letter -- seen by AFP -- to his relatives asking if 
they want a final meeting with him the day before his execution in the town of 
Vehari.

JPP executive director Sarah Belal said Pakistan would violate its 
international legal commitments if it executed a mentally ill person.

"Executing Imdad will exemplify Pakistan's failure to abide by its 
international legal commitments that forbid the death penalty for persons 
suffering from mental disabilities," Belal told AFP.

"Knowing what they do about his condition would make his hanging a most serious 
crime."

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), which 
Pakistan ratified in 2011, guarantees the "inherent dignity" of individuals 
with disabilities, she said.

Pakistan reinstated the death penalty and established military courts after 
suffering its deadliest-ever extremist attack, when gunmen stormed a school in 
the northwest in 2014 and killed more than 150 people -- mostly children.

Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but 
later extended to all capital offences.

The country has executed over 400 people since resuming hangings in December 
2014, according to new research by Reprieve, a British anti-death penalty 
campaign group.

(source: Business Standard)