Anti Terrorism Court

Anti Terrorism Court has been created by the 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act, amended on 24 October 1998 by the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance following the Supreme Court judgement declaring most of its provisions unconstitutional. A short time before being ousted out of power by Pervez Musharraf’s coup, Sharif enacted the 25 August 1999 Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance which generalized the ATC system to all of the country.

Following Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 coup, Nawaz Sharif was judged and given a life sentence in 2000 by the ATC, which was commuted into exile. ATC sentenced to death in 2006, Kamran Atif, an alleged member of Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami who had attempted to assassinate Musharraf in 2002, and had been arrested two years later. Following Musharraf’s resignation in 2008, a moratorium on capital punishment has been enacted, although it is not completely respected.