PAKISTAN: Governor’s killer sentenced to death

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REPORTING FROM ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- A Pakistani police officer was sentenced to death Saturday for the January assassination of a liberal, reform-minded governor, a crime that exposed the growing influence of Islamist extremism in Pakistani society.

The conviction and capital sentence issued to Malik Mumtaz Qadri was not unexpected. He had confessed to shooting to death Punjab provincial Gov. Salman Taseer outside a posh café in Islamabad Jan. 4, saying Taseer deserved to die because of his opposition to the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which make it a crime to utter any derogatory remarks about the prophet Muhammad, the Koran or Islam, or insult them in any way.

Critics of the law say it can be used to settle scores with adversaries or persecute minorities. Taseer, a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, had spoken out against the imposition of the death sentence on a 45-year-old Christian mother convicted of blasphemy. The woman, Asia Bibi, remains in prison, awaiting execution.

Qadri, 26, was a police commando assigned as one of Taseer’s bodyguards. When he first appeared in court, lawyers showered Qadri with flower petals and kissed his cheeks, a reaction that raised fears among many Pakistani liberals about the support for extremism that has begun to spread through mainstream society.

Two months after Taseer’s assassination, another leading Pakistani liberal who had spoken out against the country’s blasphemy laws was murdered. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minority affairs minister and the country’s only Christian Cabinet member, died in a torrent of gunfire outside his mother’s house in Islamabad. His killers have not been found. In August, Taseer’s 28-year-old son, Shahbaz Taseer, was kidnapped while on his way to work in the eastern city of Lahore. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Qadri has the right to appeal the sentence handed down by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, and Pakistani media reported that his lawyers plan to file an appeal in coming days.

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