islamabad - A Pakistani court on Saturday found a police commando guilty of murder and sentenced him to death for killing a liberal governor who had urged reform of a blasphemy law, a defence lawyer said.
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, one of Punjab governor Salman Taseer's bodyguards, was charged with terrorism and murdering the man he was supposed to be protecting on an Islamabad street on January 4 this year.
Qadri confessed to killing Taseer, saying he objected to the politician's calls to amend the blasphemy law, which mandates the death penalty for those convicted of defaming the Prophet Muhammad.
"The court has awarded my client with death. The court announced the death sentence for him," Shuja-ur-Rehman, one of Qadri's lawyers, told AFP by telephone.
Judge Pervez Ali Shah announced the verdict at an anti-terrorism court behind closed doors in the high-security Adiyala prison in Rawalpindi, the lawyer said.
Dozens of people rallied outside the prison where the verdict was announced, chanting slogans in support of Qadri, an AFP photographer said.
"The judge has also ordered him to pay a fine of 200 000 rupees ($2 300)," the lawyer said.
Shuja-ur-Rehman said he will lodge an appeal in a high court against the verdict.
The killing of the reformist Taseer was the most high-profile political assassination in Pakistan since former prime minister Benazir Bhutto died in a gun and suicide attack in December 2007.