SHC dismisses appeal against life imprisonment in murder case

The Sindh High Court has dismissed the appeal of a convict against life imprisonment in murder case observing that the prosecution proved its case.

Saeedur Rehman was sentenced to life imprisonment sentence by an additional district and sessions court Malir for murdering Shahzad Ali over enmity.

According to the prosecution, the appellant had killed Ali as he was annoyed with the marriage proposal of the deceased for his sister.

A counsel for the appellant submitted that Rehman was falsely implicated in the case as there was no eyewitness of the incident and he could not be presumed guilty on the basis of last seen evidence.

The counsel submitted that the appellant did not confess to murdering the deceased and no recovery of the crime weapon had been made from him, therefore, the benefit of the doubt should be given to him.

An additional prosecutor general supported the trial court judgment and said that the circumstantial evidence was corroborated by the medical evidence and murder weapon. He submitted that the appellant was lastly seen with the deceased at a godown near the house of the appellant and all evidence led to the appellant murdering the deceased. He requested the high court to dismiss the appeal.

A single bench of the high court comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha after hearing the arguments and perusal of the evidence observed that the appellant’s brother gave evidence in a straightforward manner and his evidence was found to be trustworthy, reliable and confidence-inspiring. The high court observed that the recovery of the deceased man’s mobile phone from the accused also supported the prosecution’s case.

The SHC observed that the appellant had a motive to kill the deceased due to his annoyance over the deceased marrying his sister and the godown where the body of the deceased was found was nearby the appellant’s house.

The high court observed that the appellant returned home with the deceased man’s mobile phone and his cloth was stained with blood and the appellant was also arrested while trying to escape.

The SHC observed that the appellant did not give evidence on oath or did not call any witness in support of his defence and in fact he raised no defence.

The bench observed that in the face of reliable and trustworthy last seen evidence, the prosecution had proved its case against the appellant beyond any reasonable doubt and upheld the life imprisonment sentence dismissing his appeal.