Publish date: 2023-12-11

A pedophile, who formerly worked with the NGO Save the Children, has been sentenced to death in his homeland of Pakistan after he confessed to raping 30 children in the country. Sohail Ayaz prior to his deportation from Britain to Pakistan had served a prison sentence in the UK for similar crimes. A court in Pakistan, on Wednesday, November 18, handed Ayaz a death sentence after police officers found tens of thousands of pornographic videos and pictures of children on his computers.

Ayaz's first reported crimes date back to January 2008, after his arrival in Britain. He was convicted of molesting and photographing a 14-year-old boy in a country that reportedly cannot be revealed for legal reasons. Ayaz was given a job in the UK as a grants monitoring officer at Save the Children in London in November 2008. He reportedly was not subjected to a background check because his job did not involve working with children directly. Investigators, however, believe that he had long-term plans to qualify for a position in the organization which would involve contact with children.

Ayaz was nabbed by British police after they were alerted by Italian officers, who arrested a pedophile whom Ayaz had provided the names of 15 Romanian children he could abuse, according to the Daily Mail. Ayaz was arrested in February 2009 at the NGO's headquarters. Investigators also discovered thousands of child porn images at his home in London. Some of the images even included six-month-old babies while others showed "distressed" children being blindfolded and tied up, reports state. 

Ayaz, after his conviction, admitted two counts of possession involving 397 indecent pictures of children and another 112 video clips. He had reportedly gathered the videos through file sharing on the "dark web" with a network of other pedophiles. He was sentenced to four years prison term after he admitted to raping a 14-year-old boy and later deported to Pakistan after his release. The pedophile made his way to Italy somehow but was again convicted and deported back to Pakistan.

He was arrested in Pakistan in November 2019 after he was accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old boy for four days. Ayaz, who was working as a government consultant in Pakistan, had filmed the assault of the child and had distributed the clip to a ring of other pedophiles, according to police. 

Officers said Ayaz admitted to kidnapping and raping 30 other children in various cities around Pakistan.

Judge Jehangir Ali Gondal, while handing his death sentence on Wednesday, said: "[He] is like a malignant knot in the body of civil society and deserves nothing but a harsh surgical treatment. He shall be hanged by neck till his death, subject to confirmation of sentence of death by the Lahore High Court. The act of the accused is inhuman - worse than a beast, because even in the world of beasts there is no concept to ravage the innocence of cubs. He deserves no leniency or sympathies in awarding the death sentence."

Ayaz's sentence will now be sent to the High Court in Lahore for confirmation, post which an execution date will be set for him.

Reacting to the news, a Save the Children spokesman said: 'Save the Children expressed its shock when Ayaz was convicted in 2009 of appalling child sex offences. At the time of his conviction in the UK, the organisation also stressed that Ayaz had no access to children or their details while briefly working as an Assistant Grant Monitoring Officer. He had been employed by Save the Children UK for 12 weeks in a role that did not involve direct contact with children.Today, all Save the Children UK employees are subject to criminal checks. We also share with other prospective employers information about individuals relating to any safeguarding misconduct."

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