Pakistan hangs killer of anti-blasphemy law gov

PAKISTAN has hanged the assassin of a governor who sought to reform the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, officials and supporters said
Mumtaz Qadri – feted as a hero by many supporters – was executed at a prison in Rawalpindi.

“I can confirm that Qadri was hanged in Adialia jail early yesterday morning,” police official Sajjid Gondal told the AFP.

Qadri, a bodyguard of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, shot him dead in the capital, Islamabad, in 2011.

Dozens of rangers and police in riot gear, as well as ambulances, were stationed outside Qadri’s home in the city early yesterday.

During his trial, Qadri’s legal defence was that Taseer opposed Pakistan’s so-called blasphemy laws by supporting Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was charged with allegedly desecrating Islam’s holy book, the Quran.