Pakistan this morning has hanged at the central jail of Multan two members of the long-banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Sunni militant party.
Pakistan has been on an execution bender in recent weeks, following the terrorist massacre of 140-plus people at a Peshawar school on December 16.
Directly following that attack, Pakistan lifted a running moratorium on executions and began finalizing death sentences against various people with years-old terrorism death sentences having no particular connection to Peshawar; it carried out four cathartic hangings on December 20.
Ahmed Ali and Ghulam Shabbir both had death sentences from years-old murders (1998 and 2000) that Pakistan characterized as “terrorist” killings.
There have been a total of nine hangings since the Peshawar massacre, and at least eight more people have had mercy pleas officially rejected by Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain, and could be executed soon.
While this is a fine clip for three weeks’ work, it might just be the tip of the iceberg: Pakistan has threatened to execute up to 500 prisoners over the coming months.
On this day..
- 1959: Col. Cornelio Rojas
- 1829: William Maxwell, the last hanged for sodomy by the Royal Navy
- 1528: Augustin and Christoph Perwanger
- 1755: Henri Mongeot, Lescombat assassin
- 1859: William Burgess
- 1355: Ines de Castro, posthumous queen
- 1889: Alfred Schaeffer, diabolical dynamiter, lynched near Seattle
- 1612: John Selman, Christmas cutpurse
- 1611: Three accomplices of Elizabeth Báthory, the Countess of Blood
- 2009: Haidar Ghanem, human rights activist
- 1898: Theodore Durrant, the Demon of the Belfry
- 2007: 23 Shia hostages