Pakistan hangs mastermind in Sri Lanka cricket team attack
December 20, 2014 11:51 am
The Pakistani government on Friday hung two convicted terrorists in the first executions after the prime minister ended a moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of a Taliban school massacre that killed 148 students and staff in Peshawar.
Marking the beginning of the countrywide executions of the terrorists awaiting death sentence in different prisons, the authorities at Faisalabad Jail executed Aqeel Ahmad alias Dr Usman and Arshad Mehmood alias Meharban at around 9pm.
Dr Usman, a former soldier of Army Medical Corps was involved in the attack on Pakistan Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009. A member of the banned organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Usman worked in the Army till 2006.
Arshad Mehmood was convicted for an assassination attempt on Pervez Musharraf in 2003 and had links with terrorist organisations.
Dr Usman was also involved in the February 2008 assassination of Lt-Gen Mushtaq Ahmed Baig of Army Medical Corps and in the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing in September 2008.
He was also suspected to be mastermind of the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in the centre of Lahore in 2009.
He was captured in October 2009 when he was injured while trying to blow himself up, reports The Nation.
