SC acquits man accused of murder after eight years

Top court rejects the plea of a man who was repatriated to serve his sentence but forged papers to escape

ISLAMABAD: The apex court on Monday acquitted after eight years a man, who had been accused of murder, by giving him a benefit of the doubt.

On Monday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court (SC), headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, reviewed an application filed by Muhammad Zaman against his conviction.

Zaman, along with Muhammad Azad and Muhammad Shahzad had been accused of shooting Aurangzeb dead and injuring his son Muhammad Adnan in the Chauntra area of Rawalpindi in a gun attack dating back to 2011. A trial court had sentenced all three suspects to death.

The three had challenged their conviction before the high court which acquitted Shahzad of all charges but upheld Zaman’s sentence.

While Azad passed away in jail, Zaman filed an appeal against his conviction before the SC.

While hearing the case on Monday, CJP Khosa pointed to ambiguities in the case and remarked that no one tended to the injured for four hours but he wrote an application and submitted it to the police after they delayed arrival.



Moreover, CJP Khosa remarked that no time of death had been mentioned on the post-mortem report of the victim.

Furthermore, one wound the victim suffered was three centimetres by three centimetres and expressed surprise that the ghastly wound did not cause the victim to go into a coma – or worse, bleed to death before help arrived.

Despite that, the CJP said that it was astonishing that the complainant was still lucid and in his senses to write an application for the police despite the severe nature of his injuries.

Moreover, the court noted a contradiction between the medical report and the statement of the witness.

CJP Khosa noted that the holes, in this case, were big enough to void previous verdicts and acquitted the suspect by granting him the benefit of the doubt.

Plea dismissed

The top court on Monday dismissed the pleas of Qamar Abbas in the fake drug case.

The case was heard by a three-member bench of the SC, headed by the CJP Khosa.

CJP Khosa noted that the Abbas had been arrested in London and later sent to Pakistan to serve out the remainder of his sentence. However, he managed to secure his release from jail by submitting forged papers of a section officer.

The top judge said that when officials of the British High Commission came to check on him, they found that the accused was not in jail.

Subsequently, Britain in 2012 suspended the prisoner swap agreement with Pakistan for repatriating convicted prisoners and added that the suspect had tarnished the image of the country abroad.

The suspect, though, was later arrested in a fake drug case.

On Monday, the CJP asked the government lawyer to undertake measures to restore the prisoner swap agreement.

“A large number Pakistanis are languishing in prisons of different countries and are paying the price of the suspect’s forgery,” he added.

During the hearing, the government’s counsel told the court that Section Officer Ali Mohammad — whose papers had been forced in the incident – has passed away.

At this, CJP Khosa inquired about the period which the suspect still needs to spend in prison.

The counsel told the court his 11-year-prison term is slated to culminate in July 2019.

The counsel further told the court that the suspect managed to remain out of jail for around four years.

The CJP subsequently dismissed Abbas’s plea, remarking that the suspect had to complete the sentence he was supposed to serve behind bars but had escaped by forging his release papers. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2019.