Amjad Sabri murder convicts transferred back to Karachi for trials
An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday directed the prison authorities to present two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militants, Asim alias Capri and Ishaq alias Bobby, on January 6 for the resumption of their trial in at least one-and-a-half dozen pending terrorism cases.
Asim and Ishaq have already been convicted to death by a military court in April 2018 for the murder of Qawwal maestro Amjad Sabri. They face 19 more cases pertaining to the targeted killings of military and police personnel, polio workers and people belonging to the Shia community.
The two were recently transferred from Sukkur to Karachi and now the ATC-XVI inside the central prison has been tasked with the disposal of their cases. The felonies alleged upon them are potential to beget maximum punishments allowed in the law.
The court has issued a direction to all the investigation officers working on them to bring the respective case files to the next hearing, so that the trial could move forward without any further delays.
The profile of the suspects, based on the input from the Counter Terrorism Department, describes them as professional hitmen, experts in killing their targets in public, and radicalised from a tender age.
How they did it
On June 22, 2016, Ishaq was waiting at a petrol pump for Asim, who had been following Amjad Sabri’s car from his home in Liaquatabad. When Asim reached the place, Ishaq sat on the motorcycle and they continued to tail Sabri’s car.
Upon getting closer to the car, Ishaq fired three shots from behind. A bullet catcher was attached to his pistol. The chamber got stuck. He got down and pulled out another pistol, fired more shots from the right and from the front. Sabri fell down in the driving seat and the assassins ran away.
After the arrests of the killers, the top tier of the LeJ group they belonged to was also arrested. The Inter-Services Public Relations in February 2016 had announced the arrests of the Karachi chief of the organisation, Naeem Bukhari, and the deputy of Afghanistan-based al Qaeda’s South Asia group, Farooq Bhatti alias Munna, at a press conference held at the Karachi Corps Headquarters.
