Pak chief justice stays execution of mentally ill ex-cop

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has suspended the execution of a mentally ill former policeman sentenced to death in 2003 for killing a fellow officer.

According to a statement, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar in the city of Lahore also ordered a new hearing in the case of Khizar Hayat, whose execution had been scheduled for January 15.

Hayat was first diagnosed with schizophrenia by prison authorities and a court-assigned medical board back in 2008 and in 2015.

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.

The suspension came a day after a district and sessions judge scheduled Hayat’s execution at the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.

Hayat has spent nearly 15 years on death row.

In 2010, the jail medical officer recommended that Hayat needed specialised treatment and should be shifted to the psychiatric facility, but it was never done.