An anti-terrorism court in Sukkur sentenced six people to life imprisonment in connection with the murder of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro.
Judge Abdul Rehman Qazi announced the verdict at Sukkur Central Jail, where tight security measures were in place.
The convicts were also sentenced to seven years on weapons charges and were fined heavily for their crimes.
The former senator was shot dead on November 29, 2014, when he was leaving a mosque attached to a seminary in Sukkur early in the morning in Gulshan-e-Iqbal area of Sukkur.
The court gathered 17 witnesses during more than 450 hearings in the case, which was booked for a verdict on December 13. Security measures were intensified at the Sukkur central jail, where the special court met to announce the decision.
The six accused (Hanif Bhutto, Sarang Totani, Mushtaq Mehr, Darya Khan Jamali, Latif Jamali and Altaf Jamali) have been in custody since December 2014.
They were convicted of murder and terrorism, and each received life sentences and seven years in prison for illegal possession of firearms.
Responding to the verdict, Maulana Rashid Mahmood Soomro expressed his discontent with the sentence, stating that the punishment should have been death and announced plans to appeal the decision to the high court.
