Arab News: 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 Jan. 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.
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