ISLAMABAD – A mentally ill prisoner who spent the last 16 years of his life on death row, passed away on Thursday, the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) announced on Friday.
According to a press release issued by the firm, 56-year-old Khizar Hayat breathed his last at Jinnah Hospital Lahore, where he was taken to after he stopped taking food and medication.
The jail authorities reported the prisoner to be ‘severely anaemic and hypotensive’ and he was fitted with a feeding tube by the doctors, but his condition did not improve.
Hayata, who fell unconscious during his final hours, is survived by four children and his mother.
Former chief justice Saqib Nisar had suspended Hayat’s fourth execution warrant on January 14; a two-member bench then referred Khizar’s case to a larger bench of the Supreme Court.
According to the JPP, Khizar was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by jail authorities in 2008 and his mental health record consistently referred to his delusions, psychosis, and his mental illness, and showed that he has been prescribed powerful anti-psychotic medication.
A heartfelt article was also written by his mother Iqbal Bano in 2017 in which she described the condition of her son.
“In truth, during most of my visits to him in Kot Lakhpat Jail (Central Jail Lahore), Khizar struggles to recognise me,” it read.
Khizar was arrested and sentenced to death in 2003, accused of murdering one of his closest friends and a fellow police officer but her mother complained that he was not represented well by the lawyer.
“In Pakistan, the death penalty is for the poor. Those who can afford to buy good lawyers don’t get sentenced to death. Is that justice?” Bano had questioned.
“I understand that he will never walk around a free, happy man, but I urge the Government of Pakistan to please take my son off of death row and beseech that he be moved to a medical facility that is properly trained to treat schizophrenic patients,” the mother wrote
