Salmaan Taseer murder: Government challenges dropping terrorism charges against Qadri

Says acquitting accused from Section 7 of ATA not in accordance with the law

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Saturday submitted an amended appeal against Islamabad High Court’s decision to drop terrorism charges against Mumtaz Qadri, a former police guard who murdered Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer in Islamabad in 2011.

The interior ministry, through Advocate on Record (AoR) Siddique Khan Baloch, filed an eight-page appeal under Article 185(3) of the Constitution, contending that Qadri’s acquittal under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 was not in accordance with the law.

“The high court was not right to acquit the convict under Section 7(a) by not appropriately considering the peculiar features of the case, in which the governor of a province, holding constitutional office was murdered mercilessly in a busy commercial area in broad daylight by a person (deputed officially as a security guard) to save and secure the life of the governor,” reads the interior ministry’s appeal, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune.

It argues that Taseer had “particular views on national issues due to which different religious and political groups were propagating against him and threats to murder him were also issued.”

The Express Tribune has learnt that no AoR was initially willing to file this case in the top court until Siddique Baloch agreed to the government’s request.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2015.