Shahzeb Khan murder case: ATC given four days to re-examine Jatoi’s birth record

The prime suspect’s plea for concessions because of his age were earlier dismissed by the trial court.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) gave on Monday the anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of the Shahzeb Khan murder case four days to decide questions regarding the exact age of the prime suspect, Shahrukh Jatoi.

The direction was given by a bench, headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar, while disposing of a plea seeking a fresh inquiry into Jatoi’s age and hence granting him legal concessions under the Sindh Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000.

Shahrukh Jatoi, along with his friends Nawab Siraj Talpur, Nawab Sajjad Talpur and their servant Ghulam Murtaza Lashari, have been charged with murdering Shahzeb Khan, the 20-year-old son of a police officer, on December 25, 2012.

Since January, the Anti-Terrorism Court-III (ATC) has been holding hearings daily to conclude the trial, even though the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 says this must be done within seven days. After a special medical board’s ossification test indicated that he was above the age of 18, the court dismissed Jatoi’s plea for a separate trial from the adults accused in the case.

But Jatoi decided to challenge the trial court’s decision in the Sindh High Court. Jatoi’s lawyer, Akhtar Hussain, claimed his client had been falsely implicated in the case. He also argued that Jatoi is a minor since the National Database and Registration Authority’s B-Form, academic documents and birth certificates issued by a private hospital and a zonal municipal committee, show his date of birth as November 17, 1995.

Hussain argued that though this record was given to the medical board, it wrongly declared Jatoi an adult on the basis of admission and school leaving certificates issued by the Aitchison College, Lahore. In the light of the medical board’s faulty report, the trial court dismissed Jatoi’s plea to be tried as a minor, added Hussain. He pleaded the SHC to suspend the trial court’s order and declare Jatoi underage and hence entitled for legal concessions.

Shahzeb Khan’s family also joined the proceedings. Their lawyer Faisal Siddiqui argued that the defence had not objected to the authenticity of the suspect’s official birth record and that the medical board had correctly declared him an adult. He pleaded the court to dismiss the suspect’s plea for legal concessions.

On Monday the lawyers appearing for Jatoi, Shahzeb’s family and the prosecutor all agreed that to decide the questions regarding Jatoi’s age, the trial court should re-examine the evidence and records. With consent of all the parties, the bench directed the ATC-III to re-examine the records, including the suspect’s academic certificates, Nadra’s records, passports, report issued by the medical board and the doctors’ evidence to decide the issue of his age within four days.

Disposing of the appeal, the judges also directed the trial court not to announce its order about the issue until the final arguments in the murder trial have been completed.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2013.