Feeble case: Life imprisonment, death sentences set aside

LAHORE:

A division bench of the Lahore High Court set aside on Tuesday the death sentences of two murder convicts and acquitted them after the Prosecution Department failed to establish a case. Arshad and Asghar had been sentenced to death by a Gujrat sessions court in 2008 for killing a man.

They had filed an appeal against their conviction. The counsel for defence argued that the Prosecution Department had not produced an eyewitness. He said there was a contradiction in autopsy report and the witnesses’ statements.

The bench allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction.

The bench also acquitted another convict Shoaib on similar grounds.

A Faisalabad sessions court had sentenced him to death for killing a man in 2009.  Shoaib’s counsel said that the trial court had acquitted three nominated suspects and convicted his client even though he had not been nominated by the police. The bench accepted the arguments and acquitted him.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2015.