Schizophrenic inmate’s hanging halted
CJ suspends excution order, fixes the case hearing for today; district and sessions judge have scheduled Hayat’s execution on Tuesday at the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail
ISLAMABAD: After appeals from human rights advocates to suspend the execution of a mentally-ill prisoner Khizer Hayat, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar deferred his hanging.
He took notice of the execution orders after reports that a district and sessions judge scheduled Hayat’s execution on Jan.15 at the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.
Justice Nisar not only suspended the order, but has also ixed the case hearing on Jan.14.
Rights’ organisations and activists were campaigning to have the mentallyill prisoner’s execution suspended, as well as, his case be reviewed in court.
Hayat was irst diagnosed with schizophrenia by prison authorities and a court-assigned medical board back in 2008 and in 2015.
Government doctors had diagnosed Hayat as suffering from schizophrenia in 2008. A petition to move him to a mental health facility was dismissed on Dec.6, 2018, the experts said.
The chief justice said on Saturday that Hayat’s case was an issue of human rights and needed to be heard urgently. A two-judge panel will hear Hayat’s mother’s petition for his life on Monday.
Justice Project Pakistan, which campaigns against the death sentence, welcomed the top court’s decision.
Earlier in the day UN experts urged Pakistan to stay the “arbitrary execution” Hayat.
The appeal came two days before Pakistan was scheduled to execute Khizar Hayat, a 55-year-old former police oficer who was sentenced to death in 2003 for shooting a colleague.
“The imposition of capital punishment on individuals with psychosocial disabilities is a clear violation of Pakistan’s international obligations,” said Agnes Callamard, UN expert on extrajudicial executions and Catalina Devandas, the special rapporteur on disabled rights.
Hayat, who has spent more than 15 years in custody, has been kept in solitary coninement since 2012, they said, urging the government to halt the execution and questioning the veracity of his conviction.
“During his trial, no evidence or witnesses were called in his defence and no questions were asked regarding his mental health, although he was later diagnosed with a mental health condition and has been receiving treatment for the past 10 years,” they said.
The execution order was issued just two weeks after the Pakistani Human Rights Commission issued an order directing a stay of the execution in his case on humanitarian grounds.
“Implementing the death penalty under these conditions is unlawful and tantamount to an arbitrary execution, as well as a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,” the UN panel said.
Two years ago, experts from the World Psychiatric Association also appealed to Pakistan to halt his execution, saying he was suffering from schizophrenia and did not understand the crime he had committed.
PETROL PUMP CASE
Meanwhile, a two-judge bench led by the chief justice ordered the government of Punjab and the City District Government Lahore to take over 24 petrol pumps, which are being run despite the cancellation of their leases and put them on sale through open bidding.
The bench was hearing a matter regarding doling out state land on lease without a transparent manner and on throwaway prices.
According to the report submitted to the court by Lahore Deputy Commissioner Saleha Saeed, there were 32 petrol pumps established on state land in the provincial capital.