SHC seeks federal govt’s comments on appeals of Safoora carnage convicts

The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed a federal law officer to file comments on the pleas of death row convicts against the death penalty awarded by a military court in the cases of Safoora bus carnage and police officials’ killings.

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 in Safoora Goth on May 13, 2015.

The military court, however, did not prosecute three suspected facilitators in the case, Naeem Sajid, Sultan Qamar Siddiqui and Hussain Omar Siddiqui, as the requisite nexus of their alleged offence based on religion or sect was not established to bring them with the pale of the Pakistan Army Act. The military authorities sent back their cases with the request to conduct a speedy trial under the anti-terrorism law.

The petitioners’ counsel, Hashmat Habib, told the SHC earlier that his clients were tried before a military court set up in Malir Cantonment under the Army Act as part of the National Action Plan.

He said the appellants were kept at the Karachi Central Jail, where they were provided with the appeal format to file it before the registrar of the Court of Appeals and the judge advocate general of the Army General Headquarters, adding that the appellants were informed of their appeals being rejected on July 25, 2016.

Habib informed the SHC that later the convicts filed their appeals with the Lahore High Court, which were turned down on October 3, 2016 on the matter of maintainability because the offence was committed and the trial conducted within the jurisdiction of the SHC.

The lawyer argued that the judgment passed by the military court was not maintainable in the eyes of law because the petitioners should not have been given 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 now stood expired, as they did not belong to any terrorist organisation or group using the name of religion or sect, raise arms or wage a war against Pakistan, as concluded by a joint investigation team.

The lawyer contended that the petitioners were illegally tried and that too in the absence of a counsel in violation of the Article 10-A of the Constitution, as they were also kept incommunicado during the trial and investigations, and due to this, their conviction was liable to be set aside.

Habib claimed that the petitioners’ right to fair trial under the Article 10-A had also been violated, adding that the Supreme Court had also held in one case that an accused’s request to meet his family could not be denied. He said the apex court had remanded back the petitions of many convicts, who had challenged their conviction by military courts, to the relevant high courts on the same reasons.

The lawyer requested the SHC to call the record and proceedings of the military court trial for its perusal and acquit the appellants of the charges. The federal law officer requested time from the SHC to file comments on behalf of the federal government. Granting the request, the court adjourned the hearing till December 6.