Convicted for terror: Woman moves SC against verdict of military court

Claims that her son, Qari Zahir Gul, was convicted without fair trial

ISLAMABAD:

The mother of a man sentenced to death by a military court approached the Supreme Court on Saturday on the pretext that her son was an internally displaced person from Bajaur Agency and a prayer leader at the Jalozai camp.

Earlier the woman, Anwar Bibi, filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court (PHC), which dismissed her plea. Now, she has filed a petition in the apex court through Asma Jahangir, saying security forces had taken her son, Qari Zahir Gul, into custody in 2011 and later shifted him to an internment centre in Khar area of Bajaur Agency.



The applicant made federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) governments as respondents. She submitted that her son was convicted but no such trial was ever held as per requirement of the law  and no such witness was ever produced.

She said that the military authorities also did not provide the convict any document connecting him with the commission of the crime and her son was also denied permission to engage a counsel. The petition said the PHC dismissed her plea over unavailability of the convict’s record.

It said the high court’s judgment was not in accordance with the directions and observations made by the SC in its judgment on 18th and 21st constitutional amendments case.

“Whether the question of coram – non-judice want of jurisdiction and mala-fide including malic in law – alleged and pleaded by the petitioner in his writ petition has been rightly and legally decided by the high court,” it questioned.



The petition said that no material had been shown which might lead to proof beyond reasonable doubt that the convict had actually and physically participated in the assaults made on the government and public properties and personnel of the law enforcement agencies and the public.

It contended that the convict was arrested in 2011 and kept in detention under the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulation 2011 whereas trail of the convict was held after 4 years by a military court.

The petition said the convict was taken by military personnel, handcuffed and blindfolded, and he was told that he was being produced before the court but he did not see any court with his own eyes and he was not given a chance to cross examine the witnesses nor any witness was produced in his presence.



Meanwhile, the SC registrar office has returned the petition by raising the objection that her power of attorney was improperly attested. However, Advocate on Record Chaudhry Akhtar Hussain said the petition will be filed again in the next couple of days after removing the objection.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2015.