ISLAMABAD - The ministry of interior has sent a fresh list of 500 mercy appeals of convicted prisoners facing death sentence to the prime minister’s office for its onward submission to the president but the ministry, through the scrutiny of these appeals, has found that there are only 63 prisoners facing death sentence on terrorism charges, The Nation has learnt. The figure of 63 prisoners in different jails convicted on terrorism charges is contrary to that propagated by the print and electronic media according to which a large number of condemned prisoners were to be hanged in the next few days.
A senior government officer said after the prime minister had announced to lift moratorium on the executions of those condemned on terrorism charges, the ministry of interior had written to all the provinces to send all the pending mercy petitions of such prisoners to the ministry who have exhausted their all appellant fora. “After we have received such mercy appeals, the ministry has sent files of 500 prisoners for its onward submission to the president through PM’s office that are facing death sentences on different charges and the scrutiny of such petitions has revealed that there are only 63 appeals of prisoners convicted in terrorism-related cases,” he added.
Meanwhile, a spokesman of the ministry of interior has clarified the statement of Interior Minister Ch Nisar Ali Khan that 500 convicts would be hanged in coming weeks.
Earlier, Ch Nisar Ali Khan had said, “The ministry of interior has rejected the clemency appeals of around 500 convicts and sent the files to the president through prime minister’s office,” the statement issued from the ministry of interior said. The minister did not say, “All these prisoners are to be hanged within next few weeks”. The spokesman said some of these files were related to cases, which were not directly terrorism related. These close to 500 files depends on the scrutiny of individual cases as per the newly-announced policy,” he added. Under the procedure, the ministry of interior writes its comments on every mercy appeal before sending it to the president for its final approval. The spokesman said that the ministry of interior in its comments on all 500 files had rejected the appeals of all the convicts.