Pak Army chief Raheel Sharif confirms death sentence of 11 Taliban terrorists

Pakistan Army chief Raheel Sharif has signed off on the death sentences of 11 Taliban members, who the army called "hardcore terrorists," for terrorism, kidnappings, attacks on civilians as well as assaults on police and army officers, the army said in a statement.

All 11 members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had admitted their offences, the army said. The charges against them ranged from causing death of armed forces and law enforcement personnel to manufacturing explosives and destruction of government property. The terrorists were tried behind closed doors, the Associated Press reported. The date of the executions is not known.

Four of the convicts — Maulvi Dilbar Khan, Hameedullah, Mohammad Nabi and Rehmatullah — were held responsible for the death of a senior superintendent of police, a colonel and a captain. Another convict, ​​​​Sardar Ali, was held responsible for "destruction of educational institutions which resulted in injuries and death of soldiers." All the convicts were held responsible for deaths — whether civilian or security forces.

Pakistan had removed the moratorium on death sentences after an attack that killed 150 school students in Peshawar in 2014.

Sharif had in February 2016 signed off on the death sentences of 12 "hardcore terrorists" involved prisonbreak, deaths of armed forces and civilians, Daily Pakistan reported. The Pakistani Army chief had in November 2015 signed the death sentences of another four terrorists convicted in the deadly attack on the school in Peshawar, the Press Trust of India reported.

Last month, a report on the number of death sentences across the world by the international NGO Amnesty said Pakistan was one of the major enforcers of capital punishment since the moratorium was lifted. Pakistan accounted for 326 executions of a total of 367 in 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific last year, the report said.