PHC sets aside death sentences to over 50 convicts

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday set aside death sentence to more than 50 convicts awarded by the military courts on terrorism charges including suicide attacks and martyring security forces, police, lawmakers and civilians.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Lal Jan Khattak allowed all the revision petitions filed against conviction by military courts, including death sentence to 50 convicts and two convicts of life imprisonment.

The bench allowed appeals after three days of detailed arguments from both the counsels of the convicts and law officers defending the convictions and examining the record of the cases. "All the appeals against the death sentence, life imprisonment and other sentences of 14 years to 20 years against the decisions of military courts are allowed and reasons to be recorded in detailed judgment," the bench announced in a short order.

Muhammad Ijaz Sabi, Sahibzada Asadullah, Abdul Latif Afridi, Shabir Hussain Gigyani, Muhammad Arif Jan, Naveed Akhtar, Ghulam Nabi, Gohar Rehman Khattak and Ziaur Rehman Tajik argued the appeals in revision petition on behalf of the convicts.

During the course of the hearing, the lawyers raised several legal points against the decisions of the military courts. They pointed out before the bench that the convictions had been awarded on the basis of confessional statements by the military courts, which did not fulfill the legal requirements under the law.

They submitted that the courts even acquitted convicts when the confessional statements are recorded after three or four days delay and in these cases, confessional statements were recorded after four or five years delay in the custody of the law-enforcement agencies.

The lawyers submitted that no fair chance of trial had been given to the convicts as guaranteed in Article 10 and 10-A of Constitution and the defence lawyer provided to the accused was the same in all cases and is inexperienced as he did his LLB in 2015.

Furthermore, they argued that the retrospective effect has also not been given in the 21st Amendment in the Pakistan Army Act, passed on January 8, 2015. They pointed out that in almost all the cases, the convicts were charged in terrorism cases that occurred in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and their trial without FIRs and retrospective effect in the Army Act for the trial was unlawful and without jurisdiction.

The lawyers requested the court to declare all the convictions awarded by the military courts void as they said the convicted persons were innocent. In the last several months, the high court had suspended the convictions awarded by the military courts in these cases. In majority cases, the chief of army staff (COAS) had confirmed the death sentence of the convicts and they were waiting for execution.

In majority cases, the families of the convicts had filed revision petitions against the death sentences after they got information during meetings with the convicts before executions at the internment centres.

The convict Gul Faraz, a resident of Bajaur, was also acquitted from death sentence awarded by the military court, who was charged for involvement in the attack on the funeral ceremony of civilian Abdullah at Zargarano Killi in Shergar, Mardan, resulting in the death of 30 civilians including KP Assembly lawmaker Imran Khan Mohmand.

Izzat Khan, a resident of Swat, a convict, as per the record allegedly charged for his involvement in the killing of innocent civilians and attacking armed forces of Pakistan as well as Malakand University, which resulted in the death of a civilian, four police officials and injuries to seven others. The convict was also convicted in involvement for the destruction of three different educational institutions.

Another death sentence convict, Muhammad Arish, as per the ISPR, was a member of a proscribed organisation. It was stated that he was involved in attacking the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, which resulted in the death of four civilians.

Jannat Karim, a resident of the Doaba area in Hangu, was sentenced to death by a military court for his involvement in a 2017 attack on an imambargah in Parachinar. Karim's sentence was also confirmed by the army chief earlier this month.