A Pakistani court yesterday convicted and sentenced a police officer to death for the killing of a liberal governor earlier this year, a murder that led to fears the country was buckling under the weight of extremism.
The January murder in broad daylight of Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer by one of his police guards was alarming in itself, but what came afterward perhaps even more so: Lawyers showered his killer, Mumtaz Qadri, with flowers, thousands demonstrated in his defense and even mainstream politicians did not loudly condemn the killing.
Qadri has told his trial that Taseer deserved to die because of his criticism of Pakistani laws that mandate the death sentence for insulting Islam.
Photo: AFP
Taseer, a member of the country’s ruling party, wanted amendments in the law and had defended a Christian woman sentenced to death under it.
Qadri was convicted and sentenced in an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi close to Islamabad, said three officials at the jail who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. The trial, which began a month after the killing in January, was held in a prison and was closed to the media.
Under Pakistan law, Qadri can appeal. Death sentences have been rarely carried out in Pakistan in recent years.
Pakistan, whose 180 million people are almost 95 percent Muslim, has seen an alarming spread in violent Islamist extremism since 2007.
The security forces have fought back, but thousands of government officials, Christians, Shiites and scores of police and soldiers have been killed in assassinations and suicide bombings.
Taseer was a wealthy, polarizing figure, and one of few Pakistani officials to consistently oppose extremism.
Members of his family have continued speaking out against militancy, and in August, Taseer’s adult son was abducted from his car in the eastern city of Lahore. The son’s fate remains unknown and militants are considered likely suspects in that abduction.
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