Islamabad: Malek Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the self-confessed assassin of former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer, was sentenced to death on Saturday by an anti-terrorism court.
Qadri, one of Taseer's elite police guards, gunned down the governor on January 4 outside a restaurant at Islamabad's Kohsar market.
He confessed he murdered Taseer because of his public statements against the country's blasphemy laws and his support to a Christian woman who had been awarded capital punishment by a lower court on blasphemy charges. The woman's appeal is pending before a superior court.
As the judge announced the verdict in Rawalpindi near here in high-security Adiala Jail where the in-camera trial was held for more than eight months, dozens of people raised slogans near the prison in support of the convict, whose internationally condemned act had been praised by religious extremists.
Judge Pervez Ali Shah noted in his judgment that Qadri had admitted his "heinous crime" for which there was no justification. In his confessional statement in the court, Qadri had stated that nobody had instigated him to kill the governor.
Qadri, who was sentenced to death on two counts — murder and terrorism — and also fined Rs200,000 (Dh8,405) has seven days to appeal the verdict, according to legal sources.
Two months after Taseer's assassination, federal minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was also shot dead after speaking out about the need to debate the blasphemy laws. A police investigation identified two suspects but the authorities recently said they had managed to slip out of the country.
In August, the slain governor's son Shahbaz Taseer was kidnapped in Lahore, capital of Punjab province. Militants were suspected to have abducted Shahbaz, who was running the business firms left by his father. The fate of the kidnapped son remains unknown so far amid an ongoing investigation. Talking to reporters outside the Adiala Jail, Qadri's lawer Shujaur Rahman said his client had also submitted to the court a 40-page statement citing material from Islamic jurisprudence.
