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Pakistan resumes executions after Peshawar school attack | |
(34 minutes later) | |
Pakistan has carried out two executions, the first since a death penalty moratorium was lifted after a deadly attack on a Peshawar school. | |
One of those executed was convicted over an attack on Pakistan's Army HQ in 2009, the other over an assassination attempt on ex-leader Pervez Musharraf. | |
The UN had earlier urged Pakistan not to resume its executions. | |
Some 141 people, mostly children, died in the Taliban attack on the Army Public school in Peshawar. | |
Pakistan's military carried out operations against Taliban units in areas near the border with Afghanistan on Friday, saying it had killed 59 militants. | |
'Different crimes' | |
The two executions were carried out in the central city of Faisalabad late on Friday, officials said. | |
Pakistani media named the two executed men as Aqeel, alias Dr Usman, and Arshad Mehmood. | |
Usman was arrested during the raid on the Rawalpindi HQ and sentenced to death in 2011. | |
Mehmood was sentenced to death over the attempt on Mr Musharraf's life in the same city in 2003. | |
UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville had earlier urged Pakistan not to resume executions. | |
He said: "To its great credit, Pakistan has maintained a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 2008," he said, adding that those at risk of imminent execution were unconnected to the "premeditated slaughter" in Peshawar. | |
"We urge the government not to succumb to widespread calls for revenge, not least because those at most risk of execution in the coming days are people convicted of different crimes." | |
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on executions in terror cases amid outrage at the massacre of the children. | |
The country's de facto foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, said the Peshawar attack was his country's own "mini 9/11" and required a sea-change in its fight against terrorism. |