0
KARACHI, July 15: The Sindh High Court admitted on Tuesday an appeal moved by a German couple serving life terms for charas smuggling and issued a notice for July 22 to the prosecution in their plea for suspension of sentence.
According to the prosecution, Karl John Joseph and Susanne Gertrude Denecke were arrested by an Anti-Narcotics Force squad at Marina Club, on January 31, 2002. Twentyone kilograms of charas was seized from their boat, which they had anchored at the club. They were tried by a special court for narcotics control, which sentenced them to jail for life and fined them Rs100,000 each.
Assailing the conviction and sentence before an SHC division bench comprising Justices Ghulam Nabi Soomro and Azizullah M. Memon, Advocate Rana M. Shamim submitted that the couple were implicated in the case on their refusal to pay an ANF inspector, who had deprived them of $9000, another $20,000 by way of illegal gratification. The recovery was not made on the convicts’ pointing out. No independent witness could be produced from among members of the public present at the club. The judgment, he contended, was based on non-appreciation and misappreciation of evidence.
Admitting the appeal, the bench directed that a notice be issued to the ANF for July 22 in the plea for suspension of sentence pending the proceedings.
The bench also admitted an appeal by Zahid Ali alias Babu against his conviction for murder and kidnapping and double murder and the punishment of life term awarded to him by a special court for suppression of terrorist activities.
According to the prosecution, Babu kidnapped and killed Ghaffar and Sharif in December 1995. He was convicted and jailed for life under the Suppression of Terrorist Activities Act. The bench directed that a notice be issued to the state in the appeal for a date in office.
NOTICES ISSUED: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued notices in a writ petition seeking DNA test of a minor to determine his paternity for the purpose of maintenance.
Petitioner Saleem Akhtar and respondent Zahida Perveen were married in 1986. They had a grown up daughter and a five-year-old son when Zahida filed for dissolution of marriage by way of ‘khula’. The suit was decreed by a family court and the marriage broke up. Zahida sued her divorced husband for maintenance of their minor son. Contesting the claim, Saleem Akhtar denied paternity and requested the family court to order a DNA test to establish the truth. The court summarily rejected the plea.
Saleem approached the high court through Advocate Abul Khair, who filed a writ petition as no appeal or revision is allowed against summary rejection of an interlocutory application by a civil judge. He said he was not liable to pay maintenance without determination of paternity of the child, which he denied.
Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, who heard the petition, directed that notices be issued to the respondents for July 22. The civil court was, meanwhile, restrained from passing any final order in the maintenance suit.
