KARACHI: All is set for the trial of three facilitators of the Safoora Goth bus carnage in a military court as the Sindh High Court on Tuesday threw out their petitions against shifting of the trial from an antiterrorism court to military courts.
Five other accused persons in the case, including Saad Aziz and Tahir Minhas, have been sentenced to death by a military court.
Around 45 Shia Ismaili community members, including 18 women, were killed and eight others sustained gunshot wounds in an armed attack on their bus near Safoora Goth in May 2015.
The families of alleged facilitators — Naeem Sajid, Muhammad Hussain Siddiqui and Sultan Qamar Siddiqui — had challenged the shifting of their trial to the military courts.
A two-judge bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan in its judgement also brushed aside the apprehension of the petitioners’ counsel regarding fair trial to their clients by the military courts in the light of a judgement of the Supreme Court.
The bench observed that the apex court held that any order passed, decision taken or the sentence awarded under the Pakistan Army Act, 1952 , as amended by the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Act 2015 were also subject to a judicial review by the high courts and the Supreme Court.
It also observed that the apex court also held that “all rights of a criminal trial are available to an accused before a military trial and even those persons who are convicted by the military courts can approach the superior court if they can establish that either the trial was mala fide or without jurisdiction”.
The bench observed: “Hence, the apprehension of the petitioners/ accused is found to be misplaced.”
Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions as the judges did not find any merit in them.
The federal and provincial governments filed their respective comments submitting that all legal formalities had been followed while shifting the trial proceedings to military courts and that the 21st Amendment to the Constitution had an overriding effect in all existing laws.
The governments’ law officers told the judges that all legal and constitutional formalities were followed in letter and spirit and that the legal committee had found the case fit to be tried in a military court. They pleaded the court to dismiss the petition, alleging the same was based on mala fide intention and with intent to delay the proceedings of the high-profile case.
One of the two petitions was filed by Hira Siddiqui, who had challenged the transfer of the case against her spouse Sultan Qamar Siddiqui and brother-in-law Hussain Umer Siddiqui.
Sultan Qamar, his brother and their alleged accomplice were also nominated for allegedly providing weapons to the assailants.
The police have shown around 10 absconders in the case, including arms dealer Zahid Abdul Qadir alias Zahid Motiwala, and placed over 100 prosecution witnesses, including 10 eyewitnesses, in the final investigation report and contended that all the suspects remained associated with Al Qaeda and following its split they became part of the militant Islamic State group.
The provincial authorities had transferred 18 cases, including the Safoora Goth bus massacre and Sabeen Mahmud murder cases, from the ATCs to the military courts for trial after getting approval from the federal government. The superintendent of the Karachi central prison through a letter informed the ATC-VI that the suspects namely Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin, Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain, Asad-ur-Rehman alias Malik, Hafiz Nasir alias Yasir, Mohammad Azhar Ishrat alias Majid, then Fishermen Cooperative Society vice chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, his brother Hussain Umar Siddiqui and Naeem Sajid had been shifted from the central prison to the Malir cantonment for their trial in military courts in 18 cases.
Apart from the Safoora bus carnage case and the Sabeen Mahmud case, the other 16 cases include murder of policemen, attempted murder and carrying explosive substances and illicit weapons.
Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2016