GHQ attack case: LHC stops military from acting against convicts
Military authorities were stopped from taking action against men convicted in the attack on the General Headquarters (GHQ) in 2009 by the Lahore High Court (LHC) till September 26. The decision was made on Tuesday after two of the convicts approached the court to obtain copies of the trial proceedings as well as the Field General Court Marshal’s (FGCM) verdict when the military authorities denied them the documents.
Justice Saghir Ahmed Qadri of the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench said that the authorities should not proceed with the sentence of the convicted men as their right of appeal lapsed on September 19 when the necessary documents of the proceedings and the verdict were not provided to the convicts.
The court further directed a standing counsel for the federation to get a detailed response from the military authorities regarding the questions raised by the petitioners, who cannot appeal their verdict until they know on what grounds the verdict was based – which is why the documents are required.
Aqeel Ahmed who has been given a death sentence and Wajjid Mehmood, given life imprisonment, filed two identical petitions on September 13 asking for the documents so that they could formally file an appeal against their convictions.
Keeping trial on hold ‘illegal’
The lawyers of the petitioners told the court that they wrote a letter to the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) to provide the necessary documents, but the authorities denied them access.
In defence of the petitioners, their lawyers said the Federal Shariat Court had already declared the power of the COAS to keep trial proceedings on hold as un-Islamic and further argued that it was against the fundamental constitutional rights of the citizens of Pakistan to be denied the course of natural justice.
Military authorities had charged Aqeel Ahmed, Imran Siddiqi, Muhammad Khaliq ur Rehman, Muhammad Usman alias Ishfaq, Wajid Mehmood, Muhammad Adnan and Muhammad Tahir Shafique with as many as 17 different charges ranging from murder, terrorism and taking hostages to deserting the army and launching an attack on armed forces on October 10, 2009.
The court handed down death sentence to Aqeel and life prison terms to Imran, Khaliq, Usman and Wajid on August 10. Two others were given 10-year jail sentence.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2011.
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