PAKISTAN: PRESIDENT URGED TO COMMUTE DEATH SENTENCES TO LIFE TERMS

former Pakistani Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney demanded that the president commute all death sentences into life imprisonment as announced by Prime Minister Makhdoom Yousuf Raza Gilani in the National Assembly on June 21. According to a press release, Burney said that Gilani informed the National Assembly that the mass commutation was a tribute to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, the late leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, who was assassinated in December 2007, and whose birth anniversary fell on Saturday. "We have asked the Ministry of Interior to send a recommendation to the President to convert the death sentence of prisoners to life in prison," Gilani said.