SHC commutes death sentence of three into life term in murder case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed the appeal of three convicts sentenced to death in a murder case but commuted their death sentence into life imprisonment.

Nadir Ali, Zaman and Wali Mohammad were sentenced to death by a Malir additional district and sessions court for murdering a man due to enmity in January 2020. According to the prosecution, the appellants had killed Zohaib with sharp weapons due to enmity over a matrimonial affair.

A counsel for the appellants submitted that the prosecution had failed to prove charges as all the witnesses were inter-se near relatives of the deceased and interested witnesses. He submitted that there were several contradictions in the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and the same were not taken into consideration by the trial court.

An additional prosecutor general and the complainant’s counsel submitted that all the witnesses had fully supported the case of the prosecution and there were no major contradictions in their evidence.

They submitted that the deceased had made a dying declaration statement before two independent witnesses who had been examined by the prosecution and they had fully supported the prosecution case.

They said that the main eyewitness, Munawar Ali, had fully supported the case of the prosecution and narrated each and every fact from the deceased getting injured till his death. They requested the high court to dismiss the appeals.

A division bench of the SHC comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Zulfiqar Ali Sangi after hearing the arguments of the counsel and perusal of the evidence observed that the prosecution had proved its case against the appellants beyond a reasonable doubt by producing reliable, trustworthy and confidence-inspiring evidence.

However, the SHC observed that the case of the appellants was not a case that warranted the death sentence but was a case that warranted an alternative sentence for murder. The high court dismissed the appeals of the convicts but altered their death sentence into life imprisonment.