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  Schizophrenic to hang, Pak SC relies on Indian verdict

Schizophrenic to hang, Pak SC relies on Indian verdict

Published : Oct 22, 2016, 7:18 am IST
Updated : Oct 22, 2016, 7:18 am IST

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for hanging of a mentally ill man convicted of murder ruling that schizophrenia did not fall within its legal definition of mental disorders.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for hanging of a mentally ill man convicted of murder ruling that schizophrenia did not fall within its legal definition of mental disorders.

A three-Judge Bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Anwer Zaheer Jamali, ruled that schizophrenia is “not a permanent mental disorder”.

“It is a recoverable disease which in all the cases, does not fall within the definition of mental disorder,” the judges said in the verdict.

The verdict relied on two dictionary definitions of the term ‘schizophrenia’, as well as a 1988 judgment by the Supreme Court in neighbouring India which said “schizophrenia is what schizophrenia does”.

Doctors in 2012 certified Imdad Ali, 50, as being a paranoid schizophrenic, after he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 murder of a cleric.

His lawyers say Ali is unfit to be executed as he is unable to understand his crime and punishment, and that doing so would violate Pakistan’s obligations under a United Nations treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Location: Pakistan, Islamabad