SC acquits seven life sentence accused for benefit of doubt

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday voided the Lahore High Court (LHC) verdict and acquitted seven life imprisonment accused by giving them benefit of doubt. The trial court had awarded capital punishment to seven accused Amjad Ali, Muhammad Khalid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdul Qayyum, Manzoor Ahmed, Muhammad Tariq and Muhammad Akeam alias Daku over murder of Muhammad Ashraf in two different incidents of murder and dacoity in Kasur city. The LHC converted the death penalty into life imprisonment. Later, the accused challenged LHC order in the apex court. A three-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa and comprising Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Yahiya Afridi heard the case through video link from SC Lahore Registry. During the course of proceedings, the chief justice remarked that both police and plaintiff had made up the story together. The witnesses were later made by themselves and the post-mortem occurred 14 hours late, he added. He remarked that usually in robbery cases, the area police know who committed the crime but according to police the accused was not involved in any suspicious activity before. The counsel for the accused said the accused had no differences with the plaintiff. The chief justice remarked that the plaintiff's brother was murdered during dacoity but he did not know that the First Information Report had to be filed.