SC acquits 4 on death row

ISLAMABAD:

After spending 15 years behind bars, four men accused of murdering six police officials in a terrorism case have been acquitted by the Supreme Court, which found the prosecution's case riddled with inconsistencies and lacking credible evidence.

In an eight-page judgement authored by Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, the SC set aside the Lahore High Court's decision that had upheld the death sentences of the accused, ruling that the case was fraught with serious legal and evidentiary flaws.

"The prosecution has failed to bring on record any independent evidence, either direct or circumstantial, which could reasonably connect the appellants with the commission of the offence. The evidence produced by the prosecution is replete with material inconsistencies and inherent improbabilities which cast serious doubt upon the veracity of the prosecution's case," the judgement stated.

The court observed that it is a well-settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that if a single circumstance creates reasonable doubt in a prudent mind about the guilt of the accused, the benefit of such doubt must go to the accused.

Such a benefit, it added, is to be extended not as a matter of grace or concession but as a matter of right.

"The learned Courts below, while failing to advert to the aforementioned infirmities and material doubts in the prosecution's case, have thus fallen into a serious error of law in holding the appellants guilty of the offences charged against them," the judgement stated.

A three-member bench led by Justice Muhammad Hashim Kakar found serious flaws in the prosecution's case.

The court observed that the two key witnesses were not in uniform and were unarmed at the time of the incident, as they had completed their patrol duty and were at the hotel in plain clothes.

"Secondly, when one police officer had already lost his life and five police officials were lying in a seriously injured condition at the hotel, the version of the alleged eyewitnesses that they immediately started chasing the assailants appears highly unnatural and does not appeal to a prudent mind."

The bench noted that such conduct is contrary to the normal course of human behaviour.

Furthermore, it added, the version of the alleged eyewitnesses with regard to the identification of the assailants also appears doubtful. According to them, the assailants had suddenly arrived at the spot and immediately resorted to indiscriminate firing.

The bench observed that in such a situation, where the entire episode allegedly occurred within a very short span of time and under a sudden and life-threatening attack, it does not appeal to reason that the alleged eyewitnesses could carefully observe and remember the minute details of the assailants such as their height, age, complexion and the clothes they were wearing.

In such a situation, the normal conduct of a person is to save his own life rather than to meticulously note down the physical features of the assailants, the court added.

"The alleged eyewitnesses have also failed to establish their presence at the place of occurrence through any independent or unimpeachable evidence."

The judgement further noted that a major flaw in the prosecution's case was the manner in which the identification parade was conducted.

"It is by now a well-settled principle of law that the identification parade of each accused person must be held separately and that a joint identification parade of multiple accused persons is unsafe and unreliable. Such a practice has consistently been disapproved by this Court. The holding of a joint identification parade has repeatedly been deprecated by this Court."