Pakistani president rejects mercy petitions for army school attack convicts

Islamabad: Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain on Friday rejected a mercy petition of four militants who had been given death sentences for the last year’s attack on an army school that left nearly 150 people dead, officials said.

The decision came a day after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif advised the president to reject the petitions of the four Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan terrorists.

“The president has rejected the mercy petition of four terrorists involved in the APS terror tragedy in Peshawar on the advice of the prime minister,” Xinhua quoted the president’s office as saying.

There is now no legal impediment in the execution of the convicts as the president is the final authority to take the decision on mercy petitions of prisoners on death row.

Nearly 140 students were among those mercilessly killed in the December attack that had shocked Pakistan and the whole world.