Niaz Mohammad, a junior technician officer of the Pakistan Air Force, was convicted for a failed assassination attempt on former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf. He was hanged in a high security jail in the city of Peshawar on early Wednesday morning.
Niaz was convicted by a military court in October 2005 along with five others.
He was the seventh condemned terrorist executed by Pakistan after it ended a six-year long moratorium on capital punishment following a mass shooting in an army-run school in Peshawar on December 16 that killed 144 people, mostly children.
Six out of seven executed militants were involved in the failed assassination attempt on General Musharraf in 2003, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The seventh was involved in a attack on Pakistan army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009.
The country imposed a de facto ban on capital punishment following pressure from the EU, reportedly for trade and export benefits.
Human rights groups and the EU have criticized the lifting of the ban on capital punishment saying it would not add to government’s efforts to eliminate terrorism.