Eight Pakistani Taliban Acquitted in Attack on Teenage Activist Malala Yousafzai

And of course the remaining two sentenced to “life” will probably be out in a year of two. WSJ:

ISLAMABAD—Eight of 10 men previously said to have been sentenced to life in prison for an assassination attempt on Pakistani teenage activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai were actually acquitted, police officials and lawyers said on Friday.

The apparent acquittals and the secrecy surrounding the trial will raise further questions about Pakistan’s justice system, which has been criticized for years for failing to adequately investigate and prosecute terrorists.

Officials declined to comment on whether the eight acquitted men had been freed or remained in custody.

Pakistani officials had said in April that 10 militants had been convicted for their involvement in the assassination attempt and sentenced to life in prison, which is equal to 25 years under Pakistani law. Officials at the time and now didn’t provide details of the judgments or about the trial, which was held in secret in an antiterrorism court inside a prison.

Pakistani Taliban gunmen targeted Ms. Yousafzai in October 2012 when she was on her way home from school in Mingora, the main town in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley. They stopped the school van, asked students to identify her and then shot her in the head, wounding her seriously. After being stabilized at a military hospital, she was flown for treatment in the U.K., where she and her family have lived since.

The two men now sentenced to life in prison are those who attempted the killing, said Azad Khan, police chief of the Malakand region, of which Swat is a part. “These were the two people who stopped the vehicle, and shot [at Ms. Yousafzai],” Mr. Khan said. “Eyewitnesses identified them, and they have been punished.”

Ms. Yousafzai was 15 years old at the time of the shooting and was a prominent figure in Pakistan because of her activism for education and women’s rights in Swat, where the Pakistani Taliban had stopped girls going to school after overrunning the scenic valley in 2007 and 2008. A Pakistani army operation in 2009 reclaimed Swat.

The publicity surrounding the attempted assassination catapulted Ms. Yousafzai to international attention. At the age of 17, she was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi.

Confusion surrounds the original trial and the nature of the acquittals. Mr. Khan said eight of the 10 men weren’t convicted and that initial reports of 10 people being convicted arose from misinformation previously given by other government officials…