The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's new government paid tribute to slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and asked President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday to spare thousands of prisoners held on death row.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani made the plea for their sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment in a speech to the National Assembly to commemorate Bhutto's 55th birthday.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has estimated that about 7,000 people in Pakistani jails are awaiting execution.

Gilani, a member of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), said the act of mercy would be a "big gift to the nation".

On Friday, he renamed Islamabad's airport as Benazir Bhutto International. The Rawalpindi hospital where Bhutto was taken after her assassination was also renamed after her.