A PAKISTANI anti-terrorism court sentenced a senior leader of a banned Islamist party to 35 years in prison for inciting violence, court officials and a defence lawyer said today.

This sentence comes more than a year after cleric Zaheerul Hassan Shah publicly called for the killing of the country’s then chief justice.

Mr Shah, a leader of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), was arrested last year after a video circulated on social media showing him offering 10 million rupees (£27,000) to anyone who beheaded then-Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa.

Chief Justice Isa had faced criticism from hard-line religious groups last year after he granted bail to a man from the minority Ahmadi community in a blasphemy case.

The Ahmadi religion is an offshoot of Islam, but Pakistan’s parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. Ahmadi homes and places of worship are often targeted by Sunni militants, who consider them heretical.

Defence lawyer Maqsood-ul-Haq and court officials said Mr Shah was convicted on Monday by an anti-terrorism court in the eastern city of Lahore.

The latest development comes less than two months after Pakistan’s government banned the TLP party following deadly clashes between the party’s supporters and police during a pro-Gaza rally.

Since those clashes, the party’s leader, Saad Rizvi, has been missing.