Terrorism-related cases: SC to take up appeals of condemned militants

Two benches will hear over a dozen appeals against death penalty

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court will take up next week over a dozen appeals of militants condemned to death by courts under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.

The appeals filed by death-row prisoners against their convictions by anti-terrorism courts will be taken up by two separate three-judge benches of the apex court headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mian Saqib Nisar.

This comes over a week after an extraordinary huddle of the top judiciary decided to give priority to terrorism-related cases. Chief Justice of Pakistan Nasirul Mulk had convened the meeting in the aftermath of the December 16 massacre of children at the Army Public School in Peshawar.

The meeting had decided that the registrar offices of the Supreme Court and high courts would bifurcate appeals between militancy-related and other cases so that cases in the first category could be taken up on a priority basis.



Most of the appeals to be taken up by the two benches next week have been pending before the top court since 2005. It has been learnt that around 250 appeals against convictions by ATCs have been pending before the SC.

On January 8, the Justice Khosa-led bench will take up two appeals of militants condemned to death by military courts. Col (retd) Muhammad Akram, the counsel for Gunner Muhammad Mushtaq, told The Express Tribune that his client had been awarded the death penalty by a military court in 2004 but he was not allowed to hire a counsel of his own choosing.

Akram said that in 2006 he had challenged the military court’s verdict in the apex court which had accepted his plea for a regular hearing – but it was never taken up. Akram criticised former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry for delaying hearing on such appeals during his tenure in the Supreme Court.

Lawyer Chaudhry Faisal Hussain said it was unfortunate that instead of disposing of the appeals of convicted militants, the former chief justice had spent time on self projection.

The Justice Khosa-led bench will also take up a number of appeals of death-row prisoners convicted by civilian courts.

Similarly, a larger bench of the Supreme Court will take up the matter related to determining the fate of over 8,000 death-row prisoners across the country in the third week of January.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2015.