KARACHI: The Sindh High Court set aside Thursday the conviction of nine activists of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen al-Alami and acquitted them of the honorary Macedonian consulate explosion, killing and dacoity charges. Syed Sohail Akhtar alias Mustafa, Zafar Iqbal alias Sohail, Naeem Rafi alias Nimi, Mohammad Atif alias Kamran, Mohammad Khalid, Mahmoodullah, Abdul Razzaq alias Bhaiya, Samirullah alias Somi and Syed Ahmar Kazmi were sentenced to an aggregate 60 years in prison by an anti-terrorism court in Karachi on August 25, 2004. They were prosecuted for killing three persons - Hameed Masih, Muhammad Asif and Ghazala Parveen - at midnight on December 5, 2002. The victims were at the consulateÂ’s office in DHA Karachi at the time. The prosecution also alleged that the appellants also committed a dacoity and took the computer, printer, fax machine, PABX and other articles from the consulate. Appellant counsels Abdul Waheed Katpar and M.R. Syed said the prosecution could not prove its case before a trial court and the benefit of the doubt should have been given to the appellants. They said the statements of eyewitnesses were contradictory and could not be relied upon to convict the appellants. They prayed for an acquittal of the appellants from the charges.
Assistant Advocate General Sindh Habib Ahmed supported the trial court judgment and prayed the court to enhance the sentence of the appellants. The SHCÂ’s division bench comprising Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaffery and Justice Yasmeen Abbasey, after hearing the arguments of both sides and perusing the record of the case, for reasons to be recorded later on, set aside the trial courtÂ’s conviction and ordered the release of the appellants if they were not involved in other cases.