Death sentence of two appellants commuted

Capital punishment handed down to main convict in judge’s murder upheld

LAHORE:

A division bench of Lahore High Court has converted the death sentence of two convicts into life imprisonment and upheld capital punishment handed down to the main accused in the murder case of a judge.

In its detailed judgment, the bench headed by Justice Chaudhry Abdul Aziz with Justice Ali Zia Bajwa as its second member termed the murder of a judge a terrorist act, noting that the judges serve the public.

The three convicts had challenged the trial court’s verdict under which they had been sentenced to death on charges of killing Additional District & Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Tahir Khan Niazi.

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The convicts Rasheed and Ameer Bhatti’s sentences were converted into life imprisonment, while the death penalty handed down to main the convict, Faiz, was upheld. ADSJ Niazi had been murdered in Rawalpindi in August 2015.

Police later arrested the accused and submitted a challan against them before the trial court. The trial court sentenced all the three convicts to death. Later, the convicts challenged the trial court’s verdict in the LHC, where the case remained pending till the bench issued the detailed judgment.

The court observed that the identification parade of suspects had a role of backbone in such cases. In this case, the identification parade was conducted in accordance with the law and the prosecution established its stance with substantial proofs.