Saulat Mirza’s Death Warrant Issued for 12th May

A fresh death warrant was issued by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Karachi on Saturday for Saulat Mirza. The sentence dictates that the condemned prisoner will be hanged in Machh Jail on 12th May. Confirmation has been provided by the Machh Jail Administration about receiving the fresh death warrant. Muhammad Ishaq Zehri, the Superintendent Machh Jail, said that as per the new death warrant, Mirza would be hanged at 4: 30 in the morning on May 12th.

Better known as Saulat Mirza, Saulat Ali Khan is a worker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) who had been sentenced to death in 1999 by an ATC for killing Shahid Hamid, the then managing director of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, along with his guard and driver in 1997 in the Defense area of Karachi.

However, the MQM had said that Mirza had been fired long before he committed the murder, but the party’s claim has been denied by Mirza. The first black warrant against Mirza had been issued by the trial court on March 11 and the jail authorities had been asked to send him to the gallows on March 19th. However, the execution had been deferred by the president a few minutes before the hanging of the convict after a video message had been aired by private news channels in which he had made some serious accusations against the top leadership in MQM.

Later, the death row prisoner had been grilled by a joint investigation team. On March 24th, another black warrant had been issued for Mirza to hang him on April 1st after the trial court had been informed by the jail authorities that the three-day stay ordered by the president had ended, but no further orders had been provided. A letter had then been written to the court by the superintendent of Machh jail in which it was stated that the presidency had deferred the hanging for a month from April 1st to April 30th.

The third death warrant for the prisoner was issued today for the condemned prisoner, who had been shifted to Karachi from the Machh Jail, along with some other high profile inmates, in April last year. Relatives of Mirza had submitted applications for his transfer back to Karachi central prison, but the SHC had turned them down after it had been informed by provincial authorities that the condemned prisoner had been moved to Machh Jail because of security reasons.