SC upholds death sentence of Saulat Mirza

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday dismissed Saulat Mirza’s plea challenging his death sentence.
Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk heard Mirza’s appeal in the chamber. Mirza’s lawyer, Latif Khosa, appeared before the court and requested the chief justice to revisit its earlier judgment. He asked that additional evidence might be recorded.
In his appeal, it was stated that the incident took place on July 5, 1997, while the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997, was promulgated on August 20. The petitioner has been convicted under Statute 7(i) (a) of the ATA 1997, read with 302 Pakistan Penal Code at the same time.
It was prayed that the death sentence awarded to Mirza should be converted into life imprisonment as a criminal could not be awarded two types of sentences for the same crime.Mirza is scheduled to be executed on March 19 in Machh, Balochistan for murdering Shahid Hamid, the managing director of the then Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), his driver Ashraf Brohi and guard, Khan Akbar in July 1997.
The SC had already dismissed a review appeal on March 9, 2004 whereas the Sindh High Court (SHC) had dismissed appeals on January 21, 2000 and September 14, 2001 respectively. A mercy appeal was sent to the then president of Pakistan, which was also rejected. Another appeal was filed with President Mamnoon Hussain that was rejected on January 1, 2015.
Earlier on January 6, the Registrar office of the court had returned Mirza’s petition on the ground that an SC bench had already dismissed the earlier review petition on March 9, 2004.Later, Mirza filed an appeal against the objection of the Registrar’s office.