SHC dismisses Safoora suspects’ pleas against military trial

Karachi

The Sindh High Court dismissed on Tuesday the petitions of the families of Safoora Goth bus attack suspects against the shifting of their trial from an anti-terrorism court to a military court.

The families of Naeem Sajid, Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, and Hussain Umar Siddiqui had challenged the trial of the suspects in a military court. The decision to shift the trial was made by the federal government’s apex committee.

Forty-five members of the Ismaili community were killed in a bus in Safoora Goth on May 13 last year.

Five of the main suspects, Mohammad Azhar Ishrat, Hafiz Nasir, Asadur Rehman, Tahir Hussain, and Saad Aziz, have already been convicted by a military court.

The petitioner’s counsel Khawaja Shamsul Islam and Khawaja Mohammad Azeem, submitted that the procedures adopted by the provincial and federal authorities for transferring the trial proceedings to military court were illegal and argued that under the Section 17(4) of the PPA, no case could be transferred to a military court without approval of the relevant trial court.

They further submitted that the letter issued in this connection was contrary to the rules of natural justice and in violation of the articles 9, 10, 10-A and 14 of the constitution as fundamental rights of a citizen could not be infringed on account of fanciful and imaginary presumptions of state functionaries.

The federal and provincial governments filed their respective comments submitting that all legal formalities were followed while shifting the trial of the suspects to a military court.

Additional attorney general Salman Talibuddin submitted that the notification of federal government for the shifting the trial could not be declared illegal in view of the Supreme Court’s judgement and the objections of the petitioners were liable to be determined by a military court itself.

An SHC division bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan after hearing the arguments of the petitioners and the government’s counsel observed that the Supreme Court had already dealt with the issue in an erudite manner and held that the formation of military courts was the need of the hour.

The court observed that the objections of the petitioners were found to be not tenable.

On apprehensions of the petitioners that the suspects will not have the opportunity of a fair trial, the court observed that the Supreme Court had already held that any order passed or sentence awarded under the Pakistan Army Act, 1952 as amended by the Pakistan Army (amendment) Act, 2015 were also subject to the judicial review both by the high courts and the apex court on the ground of corum non-judice, without jurisdiction or suffering from malafide including malice in law.

The court observed that the Supreme Court had also held that all rights of a criminal trial were available to the accused before a military trial and even those people who were convicted by a military court could approach the superior courts if they could establish that either the trial was malafide or without jurisdiction or coram non-judice hence the apprehension of the accused was found to be misplaced. The court observed that it did not find any merit in the petitions and dismissed them.