Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday suspended the execution of a militant awarded death sentence by a military court for involvement in terrorism. A two member bench of the PHC, comprising Justice Mahzar Alam Main Khel and Justice Younis Thaheem, heard the application of Bakhat Amir, a militant on death-row and stayed the execution.
The bench asked the interior and defence ministries to submit details of the case in the next hearing. According to the application filed by the convict's brother, Amir had surrendered himself to security forces in 2009 in Swat, after which there was no information about him.
A few weeks ago the family was informed that Amir had been awarded the death sentence by a military court, his brother maintained in the court. He further said "we do not know when and where the trial was conducted" and who conducted it. The lawyer of Bakhat Amir contented that his client was not given "the basic right of a free and fair trial, This is for the second time the PHC intervened to stay a death sentence awarded by a military court. In August 2015, PHC suspended the death sentence of Haider Ali, a 10th grade student at the Malakand Public High School, Swat.