KARACHI: All seems set for the hanging of Saulat Mirza, a death row convict belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, as the Sindh High Court on Friday threw out his wife’s petition seeking deferment of execution.

A division bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, dismissed the petition for not being maintainable, observing that all the legal remedies available to the convict under the law had already been exhausted by him.

The bench, which also comprised Justice Shaukat Memon, observed that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had already dismissed an appeal against his conviction. “Its decision is binding upon this court,” the bench remarked.

According to the ruling, there is no cogent ground for reinvestigation or fresh trial; therefore the death sentence cannot be postponed.

A day earlier, the Sindh High Court had directed the home secretary and the provincial chiefs of prisons of Sindh and Balochistan to submit their respective comments on a petition filed by the wife of Saulat Mirza seeking deferment of her husband’s execution.

Nikhat Saulat had petitioned the SHC against her husband’s hanging, asking the court to hold in abeyance the execution of the convict till the completion of an inquiry against the other accused persons in the Shahid Hamid murder case.

In her petition, she submitted that Mirza disclosed in his video statement the names of actual accused behind the murder. Subsequently, she added, the hanging was postponed and a joint investigation team was constituted to grill the convict with regard to his allegations.

The petitioner stated Mirza had disclosed the same details regarding the murder before a joint interrogation team (JIT). She added that her husband would help bring the other accused to justice and added that if Mirza was hanged, the evidence would be buried and no one else would ever dare to speak up the truth.

She asked the court to reopen the murder case and defer the hanging of her husband.

Saulat Mirza was sentenced to death by an antiterrorism court in May 1999 for murdering Shahid Hamid, the managing director of the then-named Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, his driver Ashraf Brohi and guard Khan Akbar in July 1997.

He was shifted along with four high-profile prisoners to the Machh jail, Balochistan, in April 2014.

His appeal against the conviction was thrown out by the SHC in 2000 and later in 2001 by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. A review petition filed in the apex court was also rejected in 2004. The black warrants for his hanging were issued after his mercy appeal was recently rejected by the president of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2015

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