Jail term already served: Convict freed as SC Shariat appellate bench commutes death sentence

ISLAMABAD: The Shariat Appellate bench of the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment of a convict involved in a murder case of a Peshawar-based lawyer some 22 years back.

A five-member Shariate Appellate bench of Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa after accepting the bail application of accused Taj Muhammad commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment.

Other members of the bench comprising Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Justice Shahid Bilal Hasan, Dr Muhammad Khalid Masood, (Ad Hoc Member I) and Dr Qibla Ayaz, (Ad Hoc Member II). During the course of hearing, Ansar Nawaz Mirza Advocate appeared on behalf of the accused and Additional Advocate General KP Nauroz Khan appeared on behalf of the prosecution.

The court, after hearing the arguments of both the sides, accepted the appeal of the accused and commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. The court held that the accused had already served prison sentence and issued an order to release him.

During the hearing, Additional Advocate General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Nauroz Khan submitted that the deceased lawyer, Abid Nadeem, was his classmate at which the chief justice expressed anger and said that if he was his friend, what the court could do.

“Why did you say this in front of the court? Are you giving such a statement to influence the court?” the CJP asked the Additional Advocate General KP. The chief justice questioned as to why a client killed his own lawyer, adding that this is an important question.

Additional Advocate General, however, replied that the accused was a habitual criminal, so he killed his lawyer for money adding that bail matters of the accused were pursued by the deceased advocate.

It is pertinent to mention here that the accused Taj Muhammad was arrested in 2002 for the murder of his own lawyer Abid Nadeem, who was sentenced to death by the trial court on the basis of the fact that the accused was a minor at the time of the incident. Similarly, when it was challenged in the Sharia Court, the court also upheld the decision of the death penalty, against which the accused had filed a Sharia appeal.