LHC will review compromise with victim’s heirs

PML-N lawmaker was sentenced to death for the murder of six people

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court will review afresh the compromise which resulted in the acquittal of a PML-N lawmaker from anti-terrorism charges in a murder case.

The court is revisiting the case on the directions of the Supreme Court that has questioned how the accused, MNA Abid Raza, was acquitted after reaching a compromise with the victim’s family in a case registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997.

Offences under the ATA are non-compoundable and the suspects cannot be acquitted on the basis of reconciliation.

An LHC division bench headed by Justice Kazim Raza Shamsi on Monday took up the appeals of Abid and his five other accomplices and remarked it would review the case of compromise. The hearing was then put off till April 5.

Abid was handed down the death penalty under Section 302 and Section 7 (Punishment for Acts of Terrorism) of ATA, 1997 for the murder of six people during a failed assassination attempt on the former nazim of Gujrat, Ghulam Sarwar Bhooch, in 1998.

An anti-terrorism court of Gujranwala had sentenced Abid and six others to death in 2001. But later, he was acquitted following reconciliation with the families of the victims.

The Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the acquittal during an election matter pertaining to Abid’s eligibility as a lawmaker and revoked the acquittals. The apex court referred the matter to the Lahore High Court with directions to decide afresh the issue of acquittal.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2017.