The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday suspended the execution of a death-row prisoner, who was sentenced to death by a military court for involvement in terrorism. A two-member judge bench comprising Justice Musarat Hilali and Justice Younis Thaheem suspended the sentence till September 8 and asked the ministry of interior, general officer commanding Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, IG prisons and home and tribal affairs department secretary to respond to the petition by filing comments.
Haider Ali, 21, was given to the 24th Unit of Baloch Regiment in Swat on September 21, 2009 by a local jirga. He was then 14 years and eight months old and a 10th grade student at the Malakand Public High School, Swat. His hanging was suspended after his parents filed a petition in the PHC, challenging his death sentence. The counsel argued the convict was juvenile at the time of arrest, and that neither the family was provided details of the trial nor the convict was given lawyer access. Ali remained missing for many months but later the family came to know he was in confinement in internment center Timergrah and awarded death sentence on June 27, 2015, the counsel said. Ali's father Zahir Shah had earlier approached the Supreme Court, seeking a copy of the relevant documents of the case's proceedings and conviction handed out by the trial court in Swat.