Military court convictions challenged

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday directed the counsel of five death row convicts, who were tried and sentenced in the Safoora Goth carnage and police officials’ murders by a military court and have challenged their convictions, to provide copies of their pleas and superior court’s judgements to the government counsel to seek a reply on the maintainability of their case.

The petitioners Saad Aziz, Tahir Hussain Minhas, Mohammad Azhar Ishrat, Hafiz Nasir Ahmed and Asadur Rehman were sentenced to death by a military court for killing 45 members of the Ismaili community and injuring several others on May 13, 2015. They have challenged their military trials and convictions in court.

In a hearing on Friday, the counsel for the petitioners, Hashmat Habib, submitted to the SHC provisions of the law as well as judgments of the superior courts with regard to military courts judgment and maintainability of the petitions. The court directed the counsel to provide copies of the same to the federal and provincial law officers and adjourned the hearing till March 2 for further arguments.

In earlier hearings, Habib had argued that the judgment passed by the military court was not maintainable in the eyes of law because the petitioners should not have been in the custody of the military authorities and tried under the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Act (Act No II of 2015) or the Protection of Pakistan Act 2014, which has now expired, as the petitioners did not belong to any terrorist organisation or group using the name of religion or sect and did not raise arms or wage a war against Pakistan as was decided by the joint investigation team.

Habib contended that the petitioners were illegally tried and that too in the absence of a counsel in violation of Article 10-A of the Constitution as they were also kept incommunicado during their trial and investigation. Thus their conviction is liable to be set aside, he added.

He had pleaded that the court go through records of the proceedings of the military trial court, set aside the petitioners’ sentence and acquit them.

NAB told to submit progress report

In a separate case, the SHC directed NAB to submit progress report with regard to ongoing investigation against Minister for Law Ziaul Hasan Lanjar in an accumulation of wealth case.

Law minister Lanjar has obtained protective bail from SHC against NAB’s call up notice in the case. NAB prosecutor told the court that the law minster did not mention the purchase of bungalow in Clifton worth Rs90 million and other details of assets.

He added that the statement of petitioner and his provided documents have to be verified and sought time to submit a progress report.

The court extended Lanjar’s protective bail and told NAB to submit progress report on March 16.