Murder of Musharraf attack case IO: SC acquits 3 accused

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted three accused booked in the murder of Raja Saqlain, an investigation officer (IO) probing the attack on former president Pervez Musharraf.

A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and comprising Justice Ayesha A Malik and Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmed Khan accepted the appeals of the accused persons.

The court, after hearing the arguments, acquitted Arshad Sati, Tahir Abbasi and Qari Younis on the basis of weak evidence provided by the prosecution.

Adil Aziz Qazi, advocate, appeared on behalf of the accused persons and submitted that the role of the accused in the identification parade had not been written in the case.

He further submitted that five (chance) witnesses belonged to different cities but all of them were relatives of the deceased; the recovery did not match in the forensic lab and the accused in the arms recovery cases have already been acquitted.

The court, after reviewing the case records and hearing the arguments of the counsel, acquitted the accused persons due to the contradiction in the statements of prosecution. Justice Mandokhail and Justice Shahzad gave the acquittal decision while Justice Ayesha disagreed with this decision. It is pertinent to mention here that Inspector Raja Saqlain was killed in Rawalpindi in 2004. One of the four accused was Eid Muhammad who died in prison.