Three Safoora attack facilitators to face military court

Naeem, Hussain and Sultan are accused of facilitating Safoora carnage which left 45 members of Ismaili community dead

KARACHI: Three alleged facilitators of the Safoora Goth attack last year are likely to be tried by a military court after the Sindh High Court dismissed on Tuesday their petitions against transferring their trial from the anti-terrorism court (ATC).

"The legal formalities for sanctioning of the petitioners' cases had duly been complied with. Hence, we do not find any malice in law so far as the sanction of the trial of the petitioners along with co-accused persons of the Safoora Goth case under the amended act of 2015 is concerned," ruled the two-judge bench in its 24-page judgment.

The bench had earlier reserved the verdict.

Qamar Siddiqui, former deputy director of the Fisherman Cooperative Society, his younger brother, Muhammad Hussain Siddiqui, and a carpets exporter Naeem Sajid, are charged with providing arms and financial assistance to the perpetrators.



The army chief on May 12 had confirmed the death sentences of the five main accused in the case after a military court found them guilty of killing 45 members of the Ismaili community in May 2015. The alleged facilitators of the accused had challenged the transfer of their trial from the ATC to the military court in December last year.



Regarding the petitioners' apprehension that they will have no opportunity of a fair trial before the military court, the bench observed that since rights of a criminal trial are available to an accused before a military court and even those persons convicted can approach superior courts, the apprehension of the petitioners is misplaced.

The bench concluded that it "therefore, does not find any merit in the constitutional petitions and dismisses them."

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2016.