Shahnawaz Amir sentenced to death in Sara Inam murder case

Convicted murderer to also pay Rs1 million in fine; mother Samina Shah acquitted

ISLAMABAD:

The prime accused in the murder case of Sara Inam, Shahnawaz Amir, was awarded the death sentence by a sessions court in Islamabad and fined Rs1 million on Thursday.

The convict's mother, Samina Shah, who was a co-accused in the case, was however acquitted by the court.

The reserved verdict was announced by sessions court judge Nasir Javed Rana.

Sara, a Canadian national, was brutally murdered by her husband Shahnawaz on September 22, 2022. Her postmortem revealed that the victim had succumbed to multiple skull fractures when she was assaulted by him.

'Mother also party to murder'

Speaking to the media after the court’s verdict, Sara Inam’s father said he was partially satisfied with the court verdict. “It is good that the prime accused has been convicted, but the mother should not have been acquitted,” he said.

“All of this happened before 12 a.m. She was awake at the time. It is impossible that she did not hear her [Sara] scream. Had she intervened, we would have found her in an injured state, but she would have at least been alive,” the father maintained.

As the verdict comes after a year of the murder, the victim’s father while speaking about the family’s travails since after the murder said that “for a year the Almighty tested us. We have been so oblivious to the joys and sorrows of life. But I guess this is how our entire life is now going to be”.

Tearing up while speaking to the media, the father added that “our daughter is always in front of our eyes. We go home, and her belongings are all over the place”.

He stressed that the sentence awarded to Shahnawaz must be implemented. “If that does not happen, everyone will forget about it, and we don’t want that to happen,” he added.

The father again emphasized on the mother being convicted too, adding that “she is not innocent… for any reason, she is not innocent”.

The murder

Shahnawaz was found guilty of murder in the police challan as he had confessed to the crime during the investigation.

According to the challan, Shahnawaz said during the investigation that when Sara did not send him money, he had a heated telephonic conversation with her and he divorced her over the phone.

The now-convicted murderer also said that after the divorce, Sara had reached Islamabad from Abu Dhabi on September 22. He added that she had started arguing with him in the bedroom on the night of the murder and demanded that Shahnawaz return the money she had sent to him.

According to the police challan, the suspect first hit Sara with a showpiece and injured her. When she started screaming, the accused picked up a dumbbell and hit her several times on the head.

During the investigation, the murderer further said that he hid his ex-wife's body in the bathtub before it was recovered by the police.

Shahnawaz was arrested by the Islamabad Police on September 23, on charges of murdering his wife. She was murdered at their farmhouse in Islamabad's Chak Shehzad suburb, where the suspect lived along with his mother.

Samina had been imprisoned in Adiala jail after the Islamabad police arrested her on October 19 following Additional Sessions Judge Sheikh Sohail's dismissal of her bail request as she was also nominated in the murder case.

However, on November 2, 2022, she was granted bail by a lower court in Islamabad.