PAKISTAN: ‘PRESIDENT REJECTED 513 MERCY PETITIONS OF DEATH ROW PRISONERS IN LAST FIVE YEARS’

Pakistan is among the five most prolific executioners in the world with 487 executions in the last three years, while the president has rejected 513 mercy petitions in the last five years, a report launched on April 11 has found.
The report, No Mercy: A Report on Clemency for Death Row Prisoners in Pakistan, was launched by Justice Project Pakistan.
It said that the government has executed nearly 500 people since lifting the moratorium on the death penalty in 2014.
And although the president possesses the constitutional authority under Article 45 to pardon death row defendants, in practice in such petitions have been consistently denied since December 2014, operating under a blanket policy for cases with strong evidence of humanitarian abuse and violations.
The report quoted the Ministry of Interior as stating that the president’s office had rejected 513 mercy petitions by condemned prisoners – 444 of which were from the first 15 months after the resumption of executions in December 2014.
The interior ministry has also informally confirmed that the government has a de facto policy to summarily reject all mercy pleas.