Additional District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Majid Hussain Gadhi has sentenced Rizwan Habib to death for the murder of his former wife, American citizen Wajiha Swati.
The verdict comes in a case that garnered international attention due to its gruesome nature and cross-border implications.
According to the judgment, Habib lured Swati to Pakistan under the pretext of resolving a long-standing property dispute worth billions of rupees.
Upon her arrival from the United States on October 16, 2021, he murdered her, mutilated the body, and buried it in a remote area on his ancestral land in Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The court found Habib guilty on multiple counts. In addition to the death sentence, he was fined Rs0.5 million.
He also received a 10-year prison sentence and a Rs0.1 million fine for kidnapping, and a 7-year sentence with another Rs0.1 million fine for destroying evidence and mutilating the corpse.
Habib's domestic employee, Sultan, was also convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison along with a Rs1 million fine for assisting in the abduction, murder, and disposal of the body.
Another accused, Habib's father Huryatullah, who was a co-conspirator in the case, passed away during the trial and was removed from the proceedings.
The judge remarked that the accused had exploited the sanctity of a blood relationship to commit a heinous crime and thus did not deserve any leniency.
The court ordered that the convict be hanged until death.
At the time of the verdict, three US diplomats and a US FBI officer were present in the courtroom.
They expressed satisfaction with the ruling, bowed their heads upon hearing the sentence, and thanked the court before returning to the US embassy in Islamabad. The American officials had been closely following the case from the beginning.
After the murder, Habib had pretended that Swati had gone missing and even filed a false report.
However, following his arrest, he confessed to the crime. The police later recovered the body from Hangu.
Swati's son Abdullah had registered the FIR online from the US with Rawalpindi's Morgah police station, and her sister also recorded a statement via video call.
Although Habib had previously been sentenced to death, the High Court had remanded the case for retrial, which led to the reaffirmation of the death sentence.
Swati's remains were repatriated to the United States, where the FBI had a second post-mortem examination conducted. The forensic report confirmed that the cause of death was severe torture, with multiple skull fractures noted.
Prosecutor Iffat Sultana represented the victim's side in court. After the sentence was announced, Rizwan Habib stated that he intended to challenge the verdict in the high court.
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