Pakistan court jails 10 for Malala Yousafzai attack

A court in north-west Pakistan has jailed 10 men for life for the attack on education activist Malala Yousafzai.
Ms Yousafzai, who was 15 at the time, was shot in the head on board her school bus in the Swat valley in 2012, in an attack that shocked the world.

She was awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for children’s rights, despite the risk to her life.
Officials say the 10 men, who do not include the man named as chief suspect, belonged to the Pakistani Taliban.
Ataullah Khan, a 23-year-old militant, was identified by a police report at the time of the shooting – but he did not appear in the list of 10 men convicted on Thursday.
They were tried in an anti-terrorist court in Swat.
Also not included in the list of the 10 sentenced, according to an unnamed security official quoted by Reuters, were the gunmen who boarded the bus and shot Malala.
The exact charges the men faced remain unclear.

Malala Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her campaigning work

A lawyer from the local District Bar Association told the BBC that this was “not an open hearing”.
Death threats
Pakistani officials believe local Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah ordered the attack. He is thought to be in Afghanistan.
Ms Yousafzai, now 17, was treated for her injuries in the UK and currently lives in Birmingham with her family. They are unable to return to Pakistan because of Taliban death threats.

Malala (shown in 2012) underwent further surgeries at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham

Profile: Malala Yousafzai
1997: Born in Swat Valley, Pakistan
2009: Wrote anonymous BBC blog about life under the Taliban
2009-10: Identity revealed in TV interviews and a documentary
2011: International Children’s Peace Prize nominee
2012: Shot in assassination attempt by Taliban
2013: Addresses the United Nations
2014: Becomes youngest ever winner of Nobel Peace Prize
2015: An asteroid is named after Malala

Pakistan’s mountainous Swat valley was ruled by the Taliban from 2007 to 2009.
It was the threat by Mullah Fazlullah to close down schools offering girls’ education that led to Malala’s diary for BBC Urdu, which was written when she was just 11 years old.
The blog, which described life under the Taliban, was anonymous, but the schoolgirl also began to campaign publicly for children’s rights.
‘Who is Malala?’

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Malala Yousafzai (left) and Shazia Ramzan reunited in Birmingham in 2013

By the time Malala was shot in October 2012 most militants had been cleared from the valley – but people who spoke out were still at risk.
Malala was travelling home from school in the town of Mingora when her bus was flagged down.
A group of gunmen asked “Who is Malala?” and opened fire.
Two of her classmates were also injured in the attack.
Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz have recovered from their injuries and are now studying at Atlantic College in Wales.

Source: BBC News

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