LAHORE // Four men were sentenced to death in Pakistan for bludgeoning a pregnant woman to death in the country’s second-largest city because she married against her family’s wishes.
A mob of more than two dozen attackers, among them relatives including the victim’s father and brother, battered Farzana Parveen to death with bricks outside the high court in the eastern city of Lahore in May.
So-called “honour” killings are commonplace in Pakistan but the brutal and brazen nature of the attack on Parveen, 25, made headlines around the world.
“The court today awarded death sentences to four accused –– the father, brother, cousin and ex-husband of the victim –– for murder and terrorism,” prosecutor Rai Asif Mehmood said.
Mr Mehmood said the sentences were handed down for three counts –– murder, terrorism and the killing of an unborn baby. Each defendant was also fined 100,000 rupees (Dh3,600).
The fifth accused in the case, a cousin of Parveen, was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment, Mehmood said.
Though Pakistan has the death penalty for several crimes, there has been a de facto moratorium on civilian executions since 2008.
Defence lawyer Mansoor Rehman Afridi said his clients would appeal.
“My clients will appeal against their sentences as we believe that the case had been politicised and the media coverage mounted pressure on us,” Mr Afridi said.
The killing sparked outrage, with Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif demanding action to catch the killers.
Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family “honour”.
The Aurat Foundation, a campaign group that works to improve the lives of women in Pakistan, says more than 3,000 have been killed in such attacks since 2008.
But Pakistan’s blood-money laws allow a victim’s family to forgive the murderer on receipt of a payment, which makes prosecuting such cases difficult because the killer is usually a relative.
Parveen’s killing caused particular outrage as police were reportedly at the scene but did nothing to stop the attack.
A few days after Parveen’s death her husband Mohammad Iqbal admitted he had strangled his first wife out of love for Parveen.
He was spared jail for his first wife’s murder because his sons persuaded her family to pardon him under the blood-money laws.
On the day she was attacked Parveen had gone to court to testify in Mr Iqbal’s defence after he was accused by her relatives of kidnapping her and forcing her into marriage.
* Agence France-Presse