KARACHI: Lahori acquitted in two sectarian murder cases
By Tahir Siddiqui
KARACHI, Jan 17: The Anti-terrorism Court-5 on Monday acquitted chief of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Akram Lahori and his two associates Mohammed Azam and Ataullah in a sectarian murder case.
Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch, who conducted the trial inside the Central Prison Karachi, exonerated the accused giving them benefit of doubt.
The LJ men, represented by M. R. Syed, were prosecuted for killing the owner and one of the employees of the Agha Juice Centre on May 25, 2002, in Rizvia Society.
The trial was re-started after a pause of over three years as Lahori was shifted to Punjab in Nov 2003 in connection with the cases pending against him there. He was brought back to Karachi about a month ago.
On Nov 5, 2003, the court had recorded the statement of the 16th prosecution witness, Naib Hussain, who had identified the three accused during an identification parade before a judicial magistrate and also in the trial court.According to the witness, he was having juice at the Agha Juice Centre in the evening when the three accused came there on a motorbike. He submitted that Lahori and Ataullah had opened fire at Agha Abbas, the 70-year-old owner of the juice outlet.
However, the court did not appreciate the evidence as the witness, during cross-examination, had stated that he had ducked down when the firing started.
The prosecution, represented by Special Public Prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa, examined a total of 17 prosecution witnesses.
The same court also acquitted Akram Lahori and one of his associates in another sectarian murder case. The two co-accused, Ataullah and Mohammad Azam, in the case were awarded death sentence.
Akram Lahori, Ataullah, Mohammed Azam and Malik Tasadduq were retried for killing Seth Ramzan Ali, owner of the Pak-Iranian Tea Company, at his outlet in Saddar on February 11, 2005. Ehsan Ali, an employee of the company, and Mohammed Firdous, a customer, were injured in the attack. One of the attackers had hurled an explosive device that had devastated the outlet.
Giving Lahori and Tasadduq the benefit of doubt, the judge exonerated them from all charges. Lahori was represented by M. R. Syed and Tasadduq by Sarfaraz Tanoli.
Ataullah was also awarded five-year term for injuring the customer and Azam was awarded life term for hurling the explosive material.
On November 15, 2003, the ATC had sentenced the four LJ men to death in the instant case. The convicts had filed an appeal against their conviction in the Sindh High Court, which remanded the case back to the trial court directing that case be retried from the stage of recording statements of the accused.
Special Public Prosecutor Mazhar Qayyum had examined, in all, 16 prosecution witnesses, including Ehsan Ali and Mohammed Firdous.
