| India-Pakistan |
| Daniel Pearl case... Remember him? |
| 2014-08-20 |
| [DAWN] The Sindh High Court directed the trial court to expeditiously conclude the trial of a defendant in the murder case of Wall Street Journal news hound Daniel Pearl. With this direction, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar disposed of an application of Mohammed Hashim who had sought the transfer of the murder case of the news hound from an anti-terrorism court in Hyderabad to Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... Pearl, 38, was kidnapped in Karachi on Jan 23, 2002 while he was working on a story about Islamist Lion of Islams. Later, he was decapitated by his captors. Omer Saeed Sheikh, who criminal masterminded the murder, was sentenced to death, while Salman Saqib Sheikh, Fahad Naseem and Mohammad Adil were sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2002. But the court had shown seven other accused, including Hashim, as absconders. Hashim was incarcerated ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... on Sept 6, 2005. The applicant's counsel, Syed Mehmood Alam Rizvi, submitted before the court that Hashim had been behind bars since his arrest, while the trial court had examined eight prosecution witnesses so far. He said the trial of the accused could not proceed further as the presiding officer of the ATC in Hyderabad, Javed Alam, had been transferred and the newly posted presiding officer of the ATC Abdul Ghafoor Memon had already refused to hear the case when he was the presiding officer of the ATC-II, Karachi. On Monday, the applicant's counsel informed the court that the trial was in progress as the depositions of the prosecution witnesses were being recorded. He asked the court to direct the trial court to expeditiously conclude the trial. The court accepted the request and disposed of the application. |
| Link |
| India-Pakistan |
| Court acquits two in killing of 11 French |
| 2009-05-06 |
| An Anti-Terrorism Appellate (ATA) bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday acquitted two of the accused in the 2002 suicide car bombing outside Karachi's Sheraton Hotel, which had killed 11 French engineers. The bench -- consisting of Justice Qaiser Iqbal and Justice Mehmood Alam Rizvi -- had reserved its judgement after hearing detailed arguments by the defence and prosecution lawyers. The two appellants, Asif Zaheer alias Asadullah alias Shuja alias Abid and Rizwan Ahmed alias Bashir, challenged their conviction and sentence awarded to them by ATC-II, Karachi on June 30, 2003. The prosecution examined 41 witnesses before the trial court, including a witness who had seen the alleged suicide bomber, Rashid, with the convicts. The ATC-II had awarded death sentences to the accused for the murders of 11 French engineers and two Pakistanis, besides awarding them life terms for causing injuries to 10 French engineers and 12 Pakistanis and 14 years imprisonment for possessing and detonating explosives. The two convicts pleaded their innocence and claimed that they had been convicted due to misinterpretation of evidence. The counsel for the appellants submitted that the prosecution had failed to produce any concrete evidence of the appellants' connection with the suicide bomber. Allowing the appeal, the bench set aside the conviction and sentence awarded to the accused by the trial court and ordered their release unless they were required in any other case. |
| Link |
| India-Pakistan |
| Court to hear US consulate bombing convict's appeal in three months |
| 2008-03-19 |
| An appeal preferred by Anwarul Haque, convicted and sentenced by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC-III) for a bomb attack on the US consulate, was admitted for regular hearing by an Anti-Terrorism Appellate (ATA) bench of the Sindh High Court Tuesday. The bench of Justice Qaiser Iqbal and Justice Syed Mehmood Alam Rizvi ordered for the appeal to be fixed after three months. The appellant/accused has assailed the death sentence on four counts of murder, life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 500,000. If he defaults on the payment he is liable to serve another three years in prison. Usman Ghani, a co-accused, was exonerated. Accused Zafar is absconding while the suicide bomber was identified as Muhammad Tahir. According to the prosecution, based on a complaint filed by SHO Artillery Maidan police station, SIP Farooq Umar, a blast was heard at 09:05 a.m. at the back of the Marriot hotel. The suicide bomber targeted a station wagon of the US Consulate at Karachi, killing the driver and diplomat David Foy, a security official and a worker at a makeshift canteen. Dozens of vehicles were damaged. The appeal was filed through counsel M. Ilyas Khan and Muhammad Farooq advocates. The appellant maintains that the trial court erred in convicting the appellant on the basis of the most unreliable, unconvincing, untrustworthy chance witnesses who claimed to be available at the scene of the crime while dozens who were genuinely present were not examined as witnesses. The confession by the accused was also not admissible under law and the mandatory requirements for a confession were not fulfilled, maintains the appeal, adding that the most important eyewitness, Ali Zaman, who claimed to be a waiter at the makeshift hotel failed to prove employment at the outlet. The prosecution also failed to prove conspiracy and common intention of the accused/appellant and alleged suicide bomber, the appeal maintains. |
| Link |
| India-Pakistan |
| Court takes up appeals filed by convicts in Musharraf attack case |
| 2008-01-30 |
| An Anti-Terrorism Appellate bench of the High Court of Sindh (SHC) comprising Justice Qaiser Iqbal and Justice Mehmood Alam Rizvi admitted on Tuesday for regular hearing three appeals filed by convicts in the attempt-to-kill General Pervez Musharraf case. Muhammad Imran, Muhammad Hanif and Ashraf Khan, the ameer, naib ameer and finance secretary of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al Almi, were convicted and sentenced to serve life imprisonment and were fined Rs 500,000 each by an Anti-Terrorism Court for Karachi division. The appellants maintained that the trial court erred in law and that they were sentenced and convicted in the absence of any material. There was no recovery of explosives, no witness to the placing of the explosives or conspiracy except for the alleged confessional statement of the accused, which is not admissible, the appeals said. The bench, accepting the appeals for regular hearing as matter of right to the accused, also issued notice to the Advocate General Sindh. |
| Link |