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ISLAMABAD, April 24: The Supreme Court on Monday admitted for regular hearing the appeals of four more civilian convicts handed down death sentence by a military court for their involvement in the second attempt on the life of President Pervez Musharraf on December 25, 2003.
A bench comprising Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar and Justice M Javed Buttar granted leave to appeal to all the four petitioners namely Zubair Ahmed, Rashid Qureshi, Ghulam Sarwar Bhatti and Ikhlas Ahmed.
Presently confined in district jail Attock, the four persons were arrested between December 2003 and January 2004. Army intelligence authorities had carried out investigations against them, after which a joint summary of evidence was recorded in October-November 2004. They were jointly tried by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM) from March 29 to July 21, 2005.
The FGCM awarded death sentence to all of them, while two other co-accused, Rana Naveed and Aamir Sohail, were sentenced to life imprisonment and 20 years jail term, respectively.
Their appeals against the death sentence were rejected by the military court of appeals and later by the Lahore High Court.
Earlier, the same bench, while accepting the appeal of five convicts involved in the first attempt on the life of the president, had referred their appeals to the chief justice for constitution of a special bench for regular hearing.
FOREIGN PRISONERS: Another SC bench has directed the federal government to take concrete steps for early deportation of foreign prisoners languishing in Pakistani jails after completion of their jail terms.
Led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the bench was hearing a suo motu case on an application moved by some Bangladeshi prisoners languishing in Adiala Jail despite completion of their jail term.
On Monday, Deputy Attorney General Nasir Saeed Sheikh provided category-wise information to the court about foreign inmates. He expressed the hope 185 prisoners would be deported within a fortnight since their respective countries had acknowledged their nationality and were sending travelling documents.
Besides, the government has also earmarked a fund worth Rs3.9 million to buy tickets for such prisoners, he said.
Likewise, there are 33 prisoners whose nationalities are known, but their respective countries are not accepting them. However, the embassies concerned have been approached in this regard.
In addition, there are 16 prisoners, whose nationalities are not known at all. About Bangladeshi prisoners, the DAG said 13 prisoners, five women and eight men, would be deported soon.
There were 65 Indian prisoners also but they were released on exchange basis.
However, the CJ asked the government to chalk out a comprehensive programme to release them because it was against their rights as well as Geneva Convention.
The CJ suggested that government-to-government level talks should be held for early deportation of prisoners.
