Pakistani court sentences convicted serial killer to death
LAHORE, Pakistan — A Pakistani court on Saturday sentenced a serial killer to death after finding him guilty of killing eight children, including a 7-year-old girl whose rape and murder drew nationwide condemnation and triggered violent protests, a public prosecutor said.
The court announced the decision in the presence of Mohammad Imran, 24, who had pleaded guilty during the five-day trial, the public prosecutor Ehtesham Qadir told reporters outside a high-security prison in the eastern city of Lahore, where the trial was held.
Imran was arrested in January, two weeks after authorities say he raped and killed 7-year-old Zainab Ansari and threw her body into a garbage dump in the city of Kasur. Angered over her murder at the time, residents attacked a police station, sparking clashes in which two persons were killed.
Zainab disappeared in the first week of January while walking to a nearby home for Quranic studies.