Malala Yousafzai’s Attackers Jailed for Life in Pakistan

Ten men have been jailed for life in Pakistan for the attack on education activist Malala Yousafzai.

Malala Yousafzai, who was 15-year-old at the time, was shot in the head on board her school bus in the Swat valley in 2012, in an attack that shocked the world.

She was awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for children’s rights, despite the risk to her life.

Officials say the ten men, who do not include the man named as chief suspect, belonged to the Pakistani Taliban.

Ataullah Khan, a 23-year-old militant, was identified by a police report at the time of the shooting – but he did not appear in the list of ten men convicted on April 30.

They were tried in an anti-terrorist court in Swat.

Also not included in the list of the 10 sentenced, according to an unnamed security official quoted by Reuters, were the gunmen who boarded the bus and shot Malala Yousafzai.

The exact charges the men faced remain unclear.

Pakistani officials believe local Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah ordered the attack. He is thought to be in Afghanistan.

Malala Yousafzai was treated for her injuries in the UK and currently lives in Birmingham with her family. They are unable to return to Pakistan because of Taliban death threats.

Pakistan’s mountainous Swat valley was ruled by the Taliban from 2007 to 2009.

It was the threat by Mullah Fazlullah to close down schools offering girls’ education that led to Malala Yousafzai’s diary for BBC Urdu, which was written when she was just 11 years old.

The blog, which described life under the Taliban, was anonymous, but Malala Yousfazai also began to campaign publicly for children’s rights.