Pak court orders execution of mentally ill prisoner

A Pakistani court today ordered execution of a mentally ill man convicted of murder despite protests by rights groups over hanging those suffering from ailments like schizophrenia.
District and sessions judge Nazir Ahmed Gajana issued the death warrant of 55-year-old mentally ill convict Khizer Hayat who is scheduled to be executed on January 17.
"Despite the ongoing proceedings, authorities at Central Jail, Lahore forwarded a request to have the former policeman's black warrant issued which has since been granted by the Sessions Court. He is due to be executed on January 17," Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a non-profit organisation, said in a statement.

It said that on October 31 last year, the Divisional Bench of the LHC, including Justice Shahid Hameed Dar and Justice Mohammed Qasim issued notices to the Home Department, Punjab and the Superintendent of Central Jail Lahore, to file their comments.
The matter is still pending before the court as the provincial government is yet to file their reply.
The issuance of Khizar's execution warrants is particularly alarming considering that the case of another schizophrenic death row prisoner, Imdad Ali, remains pending before the Supreme Court.

Pakistan's top court had recently ruled that schizophrenia does not fall within its legal definition of mental disorders.

A court-sanctioned examination at the Punjab Institute of Mental Health in July last year concluded unanimously that Khizar suffers from psychosis and schizophrenia.
Sentenced to death in 2003 over a shooting of a fellow police officer, Khizar has spent nearly 14 years on death row.
During the course of his detention he has faced numerous severe near-fatal attacks by fellow inmates as a result of his mental illness.
Since 2012, he has been kept in solitary confinement, after he was first diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 2008 by jail authorities.
He suffers from delusions and has to be heavily medicated.