By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistani authorities executed another Pakistani Taliban militant on Friday night bringing the total number of executions over the past three weeks to 10, prison authorities have said.
Khalid Mahmood, a technician with the Pakistan Air Force, was convicted over a failed assassination attempt on former military leader General Pervez Musharraf and hanged in Adyala jail in Rawalpindi city.
Mahmood was convicted by a military court in October 2005 along with five others who have already been hanged.
Khalid was the tenth terrorist condemned to execution by Pakistan after it ended a six-year long de-facto ban on capital punishment. The lifting of the ban follows a brutal mass shooting in an army-run school in Peshawar on Dec. 16 that killed 144 people, mostly children.
Six out of the 10 executed terrorists were involved in the failed assassination attempt on General Musharraf in 2003 in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
So far, only one terrorist has been hanged for killing civilians.
The country imposed a de facto ban on capital punishment following pressure from the European Union, reportedly to obtain trade and export relaxations.
The Pakistani army recently announced its setting up of 9 military courts across the country to try Taliban militants, a move criticized by human rights groups and lawyers.
