The murderer of a 6-year-old girl, Imran Ali was sentenced to death

The main suspect in the rape and murder of a girl was sentenced to death. A case that upset Pakistan and fueled the fear of a serial killer.

Convicted of the murder of a 6-year-old girl, Imran Ali was sentenced to death on Saturday. His victim, little Zainab, was the twelfth child murdered in the last two years within a 2-kilometer radius of Kasur, according to the authorities. Ali, whose DNA was found on Zainab Fatima and six other victims, confessed eight crimes in total. 

"The court has pronounced four death sentences against this serial killer", one "for kidnapping Zainab", another "for having raped her", a third "for killing her" and a fourth "for other terrorist charges, "the Attorney General of Punjab province, Ihtesham Qadir, told reporters. 

The girl's mother asks for a public hanging

The hearing, which was not interested in Ali's other alleged victims, was held in camera at Kot Lakhpat Prison in Lahore for security reasons. Only relatives of the victims had access to the courtroom, the journalists being held 500 meters upstream. 

The court also sentenced Imran Ali to several other sentences, including one life sentence, as well as several fines, for a total of 3.2 million rupees, for including "hiding the corpse in the garbage, "prosecutor Qadir continued. 

"It was a fair trial," said Mian Sultan Masood, the defendant's lawyer, who was provided by the state, his former defender having recused himself. "The accused admitted his crime and in this context, it is correct that he was sentenced to death," he said. 

Questions about the "correctness" of the trial

Zainab's mother, Nusrat Bibi, welcomed the verdict. "I want him to be publicly hanged at the place where he took Zainab," she told reporters. 

The president Ahmed Pansota, opposed to the public hanging because it is according to him unconstitutional, for his part has reservations about the "correctness" of the trial, whose verdict was made less than a month after the arrest of the suspect. 

"Accelerated justice, in this case, is in accordance with the constitution, but in many similar cases, justice is not done because of media pressure, extenuating circumstances being excluded" for the accused, said the lawyer. the High Court. 

The rape and murder of the girl shocked public opinion in Pakistan. A violent protest against the alleged inaction of the police has killed two people in Kasur. Celebrities, opposition politicians, and anonymous people demanded the arrest of the culprit while the hashtag #JusticeForZainab circulated on social networks.