Pakistan on Saturday hanged a sectarian militant whose execution was cancelled but later reinstated after a court rejected a pardon from his victim's family, officials said. The hanging brings to 19 the number of executions Pakistan has carried out since it lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases following a school massacre last month. Ikramul Haq alias Akram Lahori, a member of banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was hanged in Lahore early on Saturday morning.
He had been sentenced to death by an anti-terror court in 2004 for killing a ShiA Muslim three years earlier. Police, prison officials and defence lawyer Ghulam Mustafa Mangan confirmed the execution. The victim's family had pardoned him on January 8 just before his scheduled hanging, but a court later rejected the compromise. "The victim's family had pardoned my client, but the court rejected it and while we were appealing against the decision, my client was hanged," Mangan told AFP.