Pakistan hangs killer of former governor

Pakistan has hanged the former police bodyguard who had shot dead Punjab's governor over his opposition to blasphemy laws, in 2011.

Mumtaz Qadri killed Salman Taseer in Islamabad, a high profile murder that shocked the country, Oadri was hailed as a hero by some Islamist groups, and thousands of hard-line activists protested to show their support at the time.

News of his execution also brought crowds to the streets in protest, and security forces were put on high alert with a heavy police presence, including riot police, still in place in the area around Qadri's home in Islamabad, according to the AFP.

According to reports, Qadri was executed at 04:30 local time at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad.

The BBC reports that Qadri, who had trained as an elite police commando and was assigned to Taseer as his bodyguard, shot the politician in broad daylight at an Islamabad market in January 2011. He was sentenced to death later that year, but he claimed it was his religious duty to kill the minister, who was an outspoken critic of Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws and supported liberal reforms.

The country has seen Islamist groups grow in influence in recent years and several high profile blasphemy cases. Qadri was in fact lauded by religious conservatives.

According to reports, he was showered with rose petals in his first court appearance. He never expressed any regret for the killing, and his brother appeared to reassert that when he told the AFP news agency about his final meeting with Qadri.

In May, just months after Taseer was gunned down, Pakistan's Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the cabinet's only Christian, was shot dead by gunmen who ambushed his car, and that August, Salman Taseer's son, Shahbaz Taseer, was abducted in Lahore, but his whereabouts are still unclear.

The BBC adds that blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan and critics argue that blasphemy laws are often misused to settle personal scores and unfairly target minorities.