SC cancels military court’s death penalty verdict in Musharraf attack

The Supreme Court Wednesday annulled the army court’s death penalty judgment to two civilians convict in suicide attack case on former military president Pervez Musharraf.

The army court had turned life terms into death penalties of two civilians, Rana Naveed and Ameer Sohail, convicted in the case.

Both had challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court.

Naveed was handed down life sentence and Sohail 20 years by a field general court marshal (FGCM).

The court had reserved its judgement in the case on March 1, on the review appeal filed by two civilian convicts for their alleged involvement in the Dec 25, 2003, assassination attempt on the life of former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi.

The three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, also maintained that the military appeal court had delivered the verdict without informing the convicts and adhering to the relevant procedure laid down in the law.

The army appeal court had announced its verdict on July 21, 2005.

Initially seven civilians, one army man and four air force personnel moved appeals before the Supreme Court, which were later dismissed.

The apex court in its previous hearing had expressed surprise over the manner in which the military authorities enhanced the convicts’ sentences.

In one of earlier hearings the Chief Justice had asked Advocate Mujeebur Rehman, who was representing the defence ministry, “Were the convicts informed that their sentences were being enhanced? And when the order was made were the convicts present in the court or not?

Accepting the petition filed by Advocate Hashmat Habib on behalf of the two accused, Rana Naveed and Ameer Sohail, the court asked the ministry to present record of military courts’, court martial and Lahore High Court decisions.

Habib had challenged court martial of civilians under the army act, saying that how, without giving an ample opportunity for defence to an accused, a military could pronounce punishment to civilians. The advocate also mentioned that as Sohail was under 18, his identity card was not available, adding that the military court had misspelled his client’s name as Amir Sohail instead of Ameer Sohail.

He said that there was no evidence against the accused.

Earlier on April 1, the SC had rejected the bail pleas of 13 convicts out of the 15 charged with targeting Musharraf and sought the case record of the other two by April 6.

Hashmat Habib had contended that his clients were denied a fair trial and awarded death sentence by a military court.

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Posted by Tahir Khan on Mar 6 2013. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.