ISLAMABAD — Pakistani officials kept secret the acquittals of eight men accused of involvement in the October 2012 shooting of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai.
Only two of the 10 men tried were convicted, but the officials chose not to clear up confusion caused by inaccurate media reporting in April — probably to gain political mileage for acting decisively against Yousafzai’s attackers.
It was widely reported all 10 had been convicted by an anti-terrorist court in Yousafzai’s native Swat and sentenced to life imprisonment or 25 years.
The acquittals were revealed Friday by the popular British tabloid The Mirror, after its reporters looked for the 10 men in prisons across Pakistan and only found two.
Saeed Naeem, the public prosecutor for Swat, said he hadn’t corrected the misreporting because “it is not our duty to issue rebuttals to the press, nor are we authorized to do so.”
He said the two men convicted — identified only as Izhar and Israrullah — have each been sentenced to 46 years’ imprisonment for the attack on Yousafzai. The shooter, Ataullah Khan, is one of four suspects who have evaded capture.
Naeem said the not-guilty verdicts against the eight suspects had been appealed in the Peshawar high court.
However, human rights lawyers in Yousafzai’s hometown said the entire case against the alleged attackers was dubious.
Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck by a Taliban assassin in October 2012 while seated in a van parked outside her school.
