KARACHI: An antiterrorism court issued on Friday black warrants for the execution of two condemned prisoners in a murder case and asked the jail authorities to send them to the gallows on April 23.

Moeenuddin and Mohammad Azam were sentenced to death in July 1999 by the then judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court-III, Arshad Noor Khan, for killing Sultan Mohammad during a robbery in his house in the Mominabad area in October 1998.

The superintendent of the Karachi central prison through a letter informed the trial court that appeals of the death row prisoners had been turned down by the higher and superior judiciary while the president of Pakistan had also recently rejected their mercy petitions. He asked the court to issue warrants for hanging of both convicts.

Judge Saleem Raza Baloch of the ATC-III issued the black warrants against the condemned prisoners and asked the jail superintendent to hang them till death on April 23 at 5:30am as per the jail manual.

The court also directed the jail authorities to carry out the execution under the supervision of a judicial magistrate after observing all necessary requirements and return the death warrants with endorsement certifying that the sentences had been carried out.

According to the prosecution, the accused along with their accomplice Anees broke into the house of the victim on Oct 11 in Mianwali Colony and took the residents hostage. They gunned down Sultan when he refused to tell them about cash and jewellery while his brother Khalid Pervez also sustained bullet wounds.

The police with the help of the area people arrested both suspects at the crime scene while their accomplice managed to flee under the cover of gunfire, it added.

The case of the prosecution was mainly based on the evidence of two eyewitnesses Khalid and his brother-in-law Shaukat Zaman while two neighbours also testified against the accused.

The trial court had also handed down multiple terms of rigorous imprisonment to both convicts for the offences of attempted murder, trespassing and robbery.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempted murder), 396 (dacoity with murder), 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault, etc) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 at the Mominabad police station.

Around 70 condemned prisoners have so far been hanged across the country since the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government lifted a moratorium on execution on Dec 17 last year in the wake of the Peshawar school tragedy. The Pakistan Peoples Party government had placed a moratorium on hanging after coming to power in 2008.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2015

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