KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Saturday issued a fresh black warrant for the execution of condemned prisoner Saulat Mirza on May 12 in a triple murder case.

Saulat Ali Khan, better known as Saulat Mirza, was sentenced to death by an ATC in 1999 for murdering the then managing director of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, Shahid Hamid, his driver, and guard in 1997 in the Defence area.

The superintendent of the Machh prison in Balochistan had informed the trial court on April 27 that the implementation of the previous black warrant, issued on March 24 to execute the death row prisoner on April 1, was deferred by the presidency for one month i.e. till April 30.

He asked the court to issue a fresh black warrant for the execution of the condemned prisoner.

Judge Mohammad Javed Alam of the ATC-V issued a fresh black warrant on Saturday and directed the jail superintendent to hang the condemned prisoner till death at 4:30am on May 12 as per the jail manual.

The court also asked the jail authorities to carry out the execution under the supervision of a judicial magistrate after completing all mandatory requirements and submit a compliance report after executing the sentence.

Earlier, the trial court had issued the black warrant twice against the condemned prisoner, but the presidency deferred it on both occasions.

The first death warrant was issued on March 11 and the court asked the jail authorities to hang him on March 19. However, the president had deferred the execution for three days a few hours before the convict was to be hanged after private news channels aired a video statement of the death row prisoner in which he levelled serious allegations against the top MQM leadership. Later, a joint investigation team was also constituted to grill him.

Another black warrant was issued on March 24 for April 1 after the jail officials informed the trial court on March 22 that the three-day stay had ended and they had not received any further stay order.

The incumbent judge of the ATC-V had sentenced the accused to death in May 1999.

The Sindh High Court had dismissed the appeal of the condemned prisoner in 2000 and the Supreme Court turned down his plea against the capital punishment in 2001, while a review petition was rejected by the apex court in 2004. Over a decade-old mercy petition of the convict was recently turned down by the president.

The death row prisoner along with some other high-profile inmates was shifted from Karachi to the Machh prison in April last year.

The SHC had twice rejected the applications of the convict’s relatives seeking his transfer back to the Karachi central prison after the provincial authorities had informed the court that Mirza had been moved to the Machh jail for security reasons.

According to the prosecution, Shahid Hamid, his driver Ashraf Brohi, and guard Khan Akbar were gunned down when the then KESC chief had left his house in DHA in his car on July 5, 1997.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, on a complaint of the KESC chief’s widow at the Defence police station.

The then SHO of the Gulbahar police station, Mohammad Aslam Khan, had arrested the accused in December 1998 from Karachi airport after his arrival from Bangkok on a fake passport. The police alleged that the offence had been carried out to avenge the removal of party supporters working in the KESC.

The Gulbahar police also booked the accused in a connected case under Section 13-E of the Pakistan Arms Ordinance 1965 after the police recovered the crime weapon on a lead provided by the accused.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2015

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