Political Application of Capital Punishment on Prominent Display in Pakistan and Middle East

The use of the death penal­ty as a polit­i­cal weapon was on dis­play in late December 2019 in an extra­or­di­nary series of four unre­lat­ed cas­es in Pakistan and the Middle East.

In Pakistan, a spe­cial tri­bunal tried and con­vict­ed the nation’s for­mer leader, General Pervez Musharraf (pic­tured), of high trea­son and sen­tenced him to death. Days lat­er, a Pakistani civil­ian court con­vict­ed a Muslim pro­fes­sor of blas­phe­my and sen­tenced him to death. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after a secret tri­al that last­ed near­ly a year, a crim­i­nal court sen­tenced five men to death for the mur­der of dis­si­dent jour­nal­ist Jamal Khashoggi, but acquit­ted high-rank­ing offi­cials who report­ed­ly had close ties to the Crown. And in Bahrain, a polit­i­cal pro­test­er who said he and a co-defen­dant were tor­tured into false­ly con­fess­ing to mur­der, warned that the Arab state intend­ed to exe­cute them under the cov­er of Christmas, while the atten­tion of the west­ern nations is focused on the holidays.

Musharraf, who is in self-imposed exile in Dubai, was tried in absen­tia for high trea­son and for sub­vert­ing the country’s con­sti­tu­tion. He was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death on December 17 by a 2 – 1 vote of a spe­cial court appoint­ed by the Supreme Court. The death ver­dict has been described as a sym­bol­ic warn­ing to the mil­i­tary about the pri­ma­cy of civil­ian rule in Pakistan. The nation has had a his­to­ry of mil­i­tary coups, but Musharraf was the first mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor to be charged with high treason. 

On December 21, a Pakistani civ­il court con­vict­ed Junaid Hafeez of blas­phe­my and sen­tenced him to death for alleged­ly hav­ing made ver­bal state­ments and Facebook posts in 2013 that insult­ed the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran. Junaid Hafeez, a lec­tur­er at the Bahauddin Zakariya University in cen­tral Pakistan, had been held in soli­tary con­fine­ment since 2014, after his lawyer, a promi­nent rights activist, was mur­dered. Because of secu­ri­ty con­cerns, Hafeez’s tri­al was con­duct­ed with­in the prison.

Al Jazeera reports that ​“at least 75 peo­ple have been killed in con­nec­tion with blas­phe­my accu­sa­tions in Pakistan since 1990, … includ[ing] those accused of the crime, peo­ple acquit­ted by the courts, their lawyers, fam­i­ly mem­bers and judges con­nect­ed to their cas­es.” Amnesty International blast­ed the tri­al and ver­dict as ​“a trav­es­ty.” Hafeez’s cur­rent lawyer, who spoke anony­mous­ly out of safe­ty con­cerns, and the Hafeez fam­i­ly said in a state­ment that the government’s fail­ure to appre­hend the mur­der­ers of his pri­or lawyer ​“sig­naled impuni­ty for oth­er would-be vig­i­lantes. … Could any judge in such cir­cum­stances take the risk of doing jus­tice?,” they said.

In Saudi Arabia, a crim­i­nal court on December 23 sen­tenced five men to death and released two oth­ers in the mur­der of jour­nal­ist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Deputy intel­li­gence chief Ahmed al-Assiri, who pros­e­cu­tors said had over­seen Khashoggi’s mur­der, was acquit­ted and charges were dropped against Saud al-Qahtani, an advis­er to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi, a colum­nist for the Washington Post, had been high­ly crit­i­cal of the Crown Prince and the CIA had con­clud­ed in 2018 that bin Salman had ordered his assas­si­na­tion. Rights activists said the secrete tri­al pro­ceed­ings white­washed the Saudi roy­al family’s pos­si­ble involve­ment in the killing.

Also on December 23, Mohammed Ramadah, a con­demned polit­i­cal pris­on­er in Bahrain, warned that the coun­try intend­ed to exe­cute him and his co-defen­dant, Hussein Moosa, on Christmas, hop­ing that the world’s atten­tion to the country’s human rights abus­es would be divert­ed by the hol­i­day. Human rights groups have said that Ramadhan’s and Moosa’s con­vic­tions in 2014 for plant­i­ng a bomb that killed a police­man were the prod­uct of tor­ture and the denial of legal representation. 

Maya Foa, direc­tor of the human rights orga­ni­za­tion Reprieve, said ​“We fear the worst, because this isn’t the first time the Bahraini author­i­ties have cyn­i­cal­ly sched­uled a death penal­ty ver­dict on Christmas Day.… Handing down the judge­ment while atten­tion is else­where is a cal­cu­lat­ed attempt to avoid scrutiny.”

Ramadah was employed as a secu­ri­ty offi­cer at Bahrain International Airport when he took place in peace­ful demon­stra­tions seek­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic reform. He said he was tak­en into cus­tody, blind­fold­ed, beat­en with iron bars while his hands were cuffed behind his back, stripped naked, sex­u­al­ly assault­ed, and kicked repeat­ed­ly in the tes­ti­cles. After four days of phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al tor­ture — includ­ing threats that his cap­tors would force him to watch them rape his wife and sis­ters — Ramadah said he falsey con­fessed to hav­ing plant­ed a bomb that killed a police offi­cer. Moosa, he said, con­fessed, after three days of hav­ing been hung by his wrists from the ceil­ing and tortured.

Bahrain has a his­to­ry of impos­ing or car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty at times designed to avoid inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny. On Christmas 2017, a Bahraini mil­i­tary court sen­tenced six men to death. Earlier in 2019, he said, Bahrain wait­ed to exe­cute two polit­i­cal pris­on­ers until the British Parliament had adjourned for the sum­mer. A spokesper­son for the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims said Ramadhan and Husain had ​“made cred­i­ble alle­ga­tions that they con­fessed dur­ing bru­tal tor­ture.“ ​“We are deeply sad­dened and out­raged by the[ir] pos­si­bly immi­nent exe­cu­tions,” the organization said. 

The Musharraf death ver­dict is the cul­mi­na­tion of a bit­ter vendet­ta between the gen­er­al and for­mer Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf installed him­self as Pakistan’s ruler in 1999, oust­ing Sharif in a blood­less coup. He was elect­ed President in 2001, after ban­ning Sharif and for­mer Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the race. In 2007, Musharraf declared a state of emer­gency, sus­pend­ed the con­sti­tu­tion, and fired Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and a num­ber of oth­er judges who had opposed him. Under threat of impeach­ment, Musharraf resigned the pres­i­den­cy in 2008.

In 2013, Sharif was re-elect­ed as prime min­is­ter. Less than a year lat­er, he insti­tut­ed trea­son charges against Musharraf. The vis­cer­al­ly polit­i­cal nature of the pro­ceed­ings was evi­dent in the state­ment of Judge Waqar Ahmed Seth in sup­port of the death ver­dict. Seth urged that Musharraf be swift­ly appre­hend­ed and hanged “[a]nd if found dead, his corpse [should] be dragged to the [front of Pakistan’s par­lia­ment build­ing] and be hanged for three days.”

The Pakistani mil­i­tary react­ed angri­ly to the ver­dict, call­ing the tri­al in absen­tia a vio­la­tion of due process and decry­ing Seth’s state­ment as ​“transgress[ing] human­i­ty, reli­gion, cul­ture and any oth­er val­ues.” In a state­ment, mil­i­tary lead­ers said ​“an ex-Army Chief, Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee and President of Pakistan, who has served the coun­try for over 40 years, fought wars for the defense of the coun­try can sure­ly nev­er be a traitor.”

(This sto­ry has been updat­ed to include state­ments from human rights orga­ni­za­tions con­cern­ing the cas­es of Mohammed Ramadah and Hussein Moosa.)