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UN experts urge Pakistan not to execute mentally ill prisoner
GENEVA, Jan 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – UN experts on Sunday urged Pakistan to
stay the “arbitrary execution” of a former police officer suffering from
mental illness, just days before his sentence was to be carried out.
The appeal comes two days before Pakistan was scheduled to execute Khizar
Hayat, a 55-year-old former police officer who was sentenced to death in 2003
for shooting a colleague.
“The imposition of capital punishment on individuals with psychosocial
disabilities is a clear violation of Pakistan’s international obligations,”
said Agnes Callamard, UN expert on extrajudicial executions and Catalina
Devandas, the special rapporteur on disabled rights.
Hayat, who has spent more than 15 years in custody, has been kept in
solitary confinement since 2012, they said, urging the government to halt the
execution and questioning the veracity of his conviction.
“During his trial, no evidence or witnesses were called in his defence and
no questions were asked regarding his mental health, although he was later
diagnosed with a mental health condition and has been receiving treatment for
the past 10 years,” they said.
The execution order was issued just two weeks after the Pakistani Human
Rights Commission issued an order directing a stay of the execution in his
case on humanitarian grounds.
“Implementing the death penalty under these conditions is unlawful and
tantamount to an arbitrary execution, as well as a form of cruel, inhuman or
degrading punishment,” the UN panel said.
Two years ago, experts from the World Psychiatric Association also appealed
to Pakistan to halt his execution, saying he was suffering from schizophrenia
and did not understand the crime he had committed.
Government doctors had diagnosed Hayat as suffering from schizophrenia in
2008. A petition to move him to a mental health facility was dismissed on 6
December 2018, the experts said.
BSS/AFP/RY/18:25 hrs