KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday set aside the life imprisonment handed down by an antiterrorism court to two alleged Islamic State- (IS) inspired militants in the naval officer murder case.

The SHC observed that the sole eyewitness could not be able to safely and reliably identify the appellants and the identification parade was not conducted as per the law.

It said the widow of the deceased was the most important eyewitness of the case, but she was dropped as a witness by the prosecution without any explanation.

An ATC had sentenced Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin and Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain, said to be local IS operatives, to life in prison in December 2020 for killing Captain Nadeem Ahmed of the Pakistan Navy and wounding his foreign wife in an armed attack near Karsaz in September 2013.

The convicts had filed appeals in the SHC against the conviction order of the trial court and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings, a two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha Khan allowed the appeals and set aside the judgement of trial court.

The bench in its judgement said that the prosecution had not been able to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt as the case was almost rested exclusively on the evidence of lone eyewitness, but his presence at the time of incident was very much doubtful and there appeared to be hardly any cogent evidence to corroborate his testimony.

It further noted that there were contradictions in the evidence of eyewitness and version of prosecution as he had deposed that incident was taken place at a traffic signal and two assailants committed the offence while as per prosecution there were three attackers while a police picture of the bullet-riddled car showed that traffic signal was not near the crime site.

The identification parade was held around two years after the incident, whereas cross-examination of the witness before the trial court also indicated that he saw both appellants before the parade, it added.

The bench further observed that the cross-examination also signified that no dummy was available at the time of the identification parade, therefore, the same was not in accordance with law and besides, it was held 16 days after the arrest of the appellants and such a delay had not been explained by police.

It further said that Dr Tracy, the widow of deceased, also sustained injuries in the incident and was one of the best and most important eyewitnesses, but despite being on the list of prosecution witnesses, she was not called to give her evidence before the trial court and dropped as witness without explanation.

“For the reasons discussed above by extending the benefit of the doubt to the appellants they are acquitted of the charge, the impugned judgement is set aside, their appeals are allowed,” it concluded.

Both the appellants along with their three accomplices were handed down death sentence by a military court in 2016 in the Safoora Goth bus carnage, murder of Sabeen Mahmud and other cases. The ATCs have also convicted them in some other cases as well.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2022