SHC commutes death sentence of lawyer’s killer into life term

The Sindh High Court has dismissed the appeal of a convict against death sentence but commuted his death sentence into life imprisonment in a lawyer killing case.

The appellant, Mohammad Ishaque, alias Bobi, was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) for killing a lawyer, Waqar Nadeem Shah, in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in April 2014. A counsel for the appellant submitted that there was no evidence against him except the statement of a sole eyewitness whose testimony could not be relied upon as the identification parade for the appellant was conducted two years after the incident.

An additional prosecutor general supported the trial court judgment and submitted that the eyewitness had identified the appellant in the identification parade with specific role and the prosecution had proved its case against the appellant.

A division bench of the high court comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Khadim Hussain Tunio after hearing the arguments observed that the prosecution had proved its case against the appellant beyond any reasonable doubt but did not find that the case fell within the purview of the anti-terrorism law as the offence was simply a murder by the way of targeted killing which had no intent or purpose or design to create terror, and acquitted the appellant from terrorism charges. The court dismissed the appeal of the convict but modified the death sentence into life imprisonment.

SHC orders probe

The SHC on Wednesday directed a police investigation officer to investigate cases of persons claiming to be army officers threatening legal heirs of a missing person.

The direction came on the petition of a woman, Saeeda, who has challenged illegal detention of his father Abdul Hameed from the Gulistan-e-Jauhar area. The petitioner alleged that her father was picked up by personnel of law enforcement agencies from his house in Gulistan-e-Jauhar on April 10 and his whereabouts were unknown.

She informed the high court that she had received phone calls from a men claiming to be Major Rehman and Sarwar who assured her that her father would return if their family remained silent.