Pakistan court jails 10 for Malala attack

Anti-terrorism court sentences 10 men to 25 years each for their involvement in 2012 shooting of schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai

The Guardian, Jon Boone in Islamabad, Thursday 30 April 2015

Malala Yousafzai, who has become a symbol of defiance in the campaign
against militants in Pakistan. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

Ten men involved in the attempt to kill Malala Yousafzai have been sentenced to life in prison by a Pakistani court, lawyers involved in the case have said.

None of the men was in the team who shot the education activist in the head as she sat in a school minivan in 2012, but a security official said they had been part of a wider group of plotters involved in the planning and execution of the attack.

The point-blank shooting of the then 15-year-old at the behest of the Pakistani Taliban caused global outrage and Malala later became the youngest ever winner of the Nobel prize.

One military source said on Thursday that only two of the 10 men had been sentenced by the anti-terrorism court in the city of Mingora, the capital of Malala’s native Swat.

However, court officials and lawyers involved in the case insisted all 10 had been given sentences of 25 years.

The men’s sentences for attempted murder could be increased if additional charges are brought against them.

They were arrested in September last year in a swoop involving multiple security agencies and accused of being part of a group tasked by the Pakistani Taliban leader, Mullah Fazlullah, with killing a series of high-profile people, including Malala.

She had infuriated the militants both with her advocacy for female education and her fearless public criticism of them.

Malala first began exposing the miseries of life under militant rule in 2009 when, at the age of 12, she began blogging about life under the Taliban in Swat for the BBC Urdu website.

A Pakistani offshoot of the Taliban had gradually come to dominate the picturesque region of Swat, implementing its version of Sharia law, which included public floggings and banning girls from going to school.

The man believed to have fired the bullet at Malala’s head, a militant called Ataullah Khan, is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.

Although Malala is celebrated around the world as a symbol of the struggle for female education, many in Pakistan are suspicious of the praise heaped on her by the west. She has lived in the UK since being taken there for life-saving treatment at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham.

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