Court to examine legal arguments which enabled convicts to get relief from SHC

The sessions court retrying the Shahzeb Khan murder case has set January 20 as the date to examine the details of the legal points and arguments which resulted in Shahrukh Jatoi and others getting relief from the Sindh High Court in the form a retrial.

During a hearing on Friday, the sessions judge (south) said the court wished to examine the arguments and written statements, including the out-of-court settlement reached by both sides, which were presented in the high court and ultimately led to its November 2017 decision to overturn Jatoi and others’ death sentence and order a retrial.

The court also directed that copies of the relevant documents in the murder case also be provided to Jatoi and his other co-accused by the next hearing. The accused Jatoi, Siraj Talpur, Sajjad Talpur and Ghulam Mustafa Lashari were present at Friday’s hearing.

The SHC has directed the lower court to retry the accused treating the case as a general murder case and not as a terrorism case. The ATC which had awarded death sentences in the case in 2013 had tried the convicts under Section 7 of the Anti-terrorism Act 1997. However, in a subsequent review petition to the SHC, the accused’s lawyer had contended since the murder was an act of personal enmity it should not have been tried under an ATA section. He had also argued that his clients should be freed because the victim’s family had pardoned them and had signed an affidavit stating that.

The accused are being tried for the murder of Shahzeb Khan, who was shot dead by Shahrukh and accomplices in 2012 following an altercation after Shahrukh’s guard sexually harassed Shahzeb’s sister.

Shahrukh Jatoi along with some other accused persons is also facing a connected fraud case of forging fraudulent travel documents to flee the country after killing Shahzeb. He has been granted bail in that case for a sum of Rs100,000.

Others accused in the fraud case include his brother Nawab; Muhammad Khurram, the director of the Sikandar Ali Jatoi Group of Companies; PIA officials Mehmood Sultan and Wasi Akhtar; travel agents Umar Domki and Abu Bakar Domki as well as the then protocol officer of Bilawal House. The charges have yet not been framed against any of the accused.