LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench on Wednesday converted the death penalty handed down to two convicts in Maulana Azam Tariq murder-attempt case into life imprisonment.

Ghulam Raza Naqvi and Zaheer Ahmad filed an appeal against their conviction, saying the trial court handed down the death penalty ignoring many grave facts of the case. They said the trial court relied on the witnesses of the prosecution only and there was no independent witness against them. The appellants asked the court to set aside their conviction and order their acquittal.

An anti-terrorism court of Sargodha had awarded death sentence to the convicts on two counts -- under Section 302 of the PPC and Section 7 of the ATA.

Also read: Rallies seek abolition of death penalty

The bench set aside the death penalty handed down to the convicts under ATA and converted the other one given under PPC into life term.

The prosecution accused the convicts of carrying out an attack on the convoy of Maulana Azam Tariq in 1994. Two guards of the Maulana were killed in the attack.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2014