Rawalpindi
A divisional bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC), comprising Justice Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah and Justice Sikandar Zulqarnain Saleem, dismissed an Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) of a murder convict, Shoaib Sarwar, who was seeking from the court not to execute his death sentence before the persons convicted and condemned with death penalties under terrorism charges.
The LHC Rawalpindi Bench, dismissing the ICA, directed authorities to act as per law. His counsel Rana Kashif advocate had been arguing before the court that as per federal government notification convicts under charges of terrorism should be hanged first and then other convicts for murders.
A district and sessions judge on July 2, 1998 had awarded death sentence to Shoaib Sarwar for the murder of Awais Nawaz on January 21, 1996 in Wah Cantonment.
An LHC bench on July 2, 2003 had rejected Sarwar’s appeal against conviction and on April 3, 2006, the Supreme Court had also upheld the sentence. The convict’s plea for clemency was also denied by the President of Pakistan.
Previously on September 16, 2014 a LHC divisional bench had stayed the execution of Shoaib Sarwar due to moratorium when Shoaib Sarwar’s death sentence was to be executed on September 18. Before that a LHC judge in August 2014 had ordered the district and sessions judge to implement the sentence after the government could not produce documents proving that the moratorium was still in effect.
Justice Ibad-Ur-Rehman Lodhi of the LHC had issued the said order at the writ petition of Jamshed Nawaz, brother of murdered Awais Nawaz. The petitioner Jamshed Nawaz had adopted before the court that the execution of Shoaib Sarwar’s death sentence was still unimplemented despite the fact that he had exhausted all forums of appeal.