TheAnti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan (Urdu:عدالت انسداد دہشتگردی, ATC) was established inPakistan in 1997, underNawaz Sharif's government, to deal with terrorism cases.
The court had been created by the 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act, amended on 24 October 1998 by the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance following theSupreme Court judgment (Merham Ali versus Federation of Pakistan, 1998) declaring most of its provisions unconstitutional.[1] A short time before being ousted from power byPervez Musharraf'scoup, Sharif enacted the 25 August 1999 Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance which generalized the ATC system to all the country.[1]
Anti-terrorism courts under General Pervez Musharraf
Following Pervez Musharraf's1999 coup, Nawaz Sharif was judged and given a life sentence in 2000 by the ATC,[2] which was commuted intoexile.[3]
In 2000,Kamran Atif, an alleged member ofHarkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami, attempted to assassinate Musharraf; the ATC sentenced him to death in 2006.[4] Following Musharraf's resignation in 2008, Pakistan places a moratorium on capital punishment,[5] which lasted until 2012.[6]
