Zardari urges govt to review offences carrying death penalty

Former president Asif Ali Zardari has urged the government to thoroughly review the offences in which death penalty is awarded in the light of religious obligations and conditions prevailing in the country. “The proponents of death penalty often argue that Islam ordains it. According to a large number of eminent religious scholars, Islam provides for death punishment only for murder and fasad fil arz (mischief on Earth) but in Pakistan over two dozen offences carry death penalty. This makes it necessary that the list of offences carrying death penalty is reviewed,” Mr Zardari said in a statement released by his spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar. He said the PPP would support the government in carrying out a review of the list of offences. The former president said Pakistan had also signed and ratified a number of international agreements that obligated it to accept the international human rights mechanisms. “The second protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by Pakistan, calls for abolition of the death penalty and cannot be ignored for too long,” he added. Mr Zardari said capital punishment was irreversible and no remedy was available if it’s established later that the executed person was innocent. “The nation has still not recovered from the after effects of the execution of Pakistan’s first directly elected prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto through dubious and politically motivated proceedings,” he said. Mr Zardari said that even in countries with strong and efficient justice systems, death penalty had been abolished on the ground of possibility of wrong conviction.