Zahir Zakir Jaffer on Tuesday sought a review of the Supreme Court verdict that upheld his death sentence for the gruesome 2021 murder of Noor Mukadam in Islamabad.

Noor, aged 27 years, was found murdered at Zahir’s Islamabad residence in July 2021, with the probe revealing she was tortured by him before being beheaded. Zahir’s death sentence by the trial court had already been upheld by the Islamabad High Court (IHC).

The 47-page review petition, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was filed by Advocate Khawaja Haris on behalf of Zahir under Article 188 of the Constitution (review of judgments or orders by SC). The state and Noor’s father, Shaukat Ali Muqadam, were made the respondents.

The petition contended that the issue of Zahir’s alleged “unsoundness of mind or mental capacity” that was raised before the SC in an application had not been addressed and was “given short shrift”.

It further said that “hype created on social media […] constantly created hatred towards the petitioner throughout the investigation and the trial (and even at appeal stage)”, which breached Zahir’s right to fair trial and due process.

“In [the] process of hurry, mistakes were made in the investigation and during trial,” the petition quoted a verdict from another case.

On the rape charges, the review plea argued that it was “apparent from the record that there is no evidence on the record in proof of this allegation”.

The SC had commuted Zahir’s death sentence on the rape charge to life imprisonment, as decided by the trial court, but did not acquit him of it. While he was acquitted of the 10-year sentence for kidnapping, a one-year term was handed down for wrongful confinement under Section 342 of the Pakistan Penal Code, according to the SC verdict.

Zahir’s review plea argued that the video recordings based on which the SC upheld the death sentence had not been proved during the trial and were not provided to any of the accused.

It said the apex court ruling was extensively based on video recordings stored in a digital video recorder (DVR) and on clips that the prosecution said were transferred from the DVR to a hard disk, providing the “most essential link in the chain of circumstances” on which the SC gave its verdict.

“Portions of these so-called recordings, on the basis whereof the inference of ‘last seen’ has been drawn against the petitioner, were never played during the trial, rather, only hearsay evidence thereof was led by the prosecution,” the plea stated.

The SC, in its detailed verdict, had stressed the significance of digital evidence by declaring that footage can be admissible as primary evidence under the “silent witness theory” — a rule of evidence that allows for photog­r­a­­phic video or other recorded evidence to be admitted as substantive proof of what it depicts, without the need for an eyewitness’s testimony.

Justice Muhammad Hashim Kakar, who led the three-member bench, observed that the silent witness theory of authentication had developed in almost all jurisdictions over the last 25 years to allow photos to substantively “speak for themselves”.

The SC had also noted that Zahir neglected to provide any explanation for the victim’s presence at his residence and the ensuing recovery of her body from the premises.

Zahir is also contemplating filing a mercy petition before President Asif Ali Zardari, with a letter by jail authorities seeking the formation of a medical board so its opinion could be included in the plea. A presidential pardon under Article 45 of the Constitution could provide Zahir pardon or reprieve, or remit, suspend or commute his sentence.

SC verdict

A three-member bench, led by Justice Kakar and including Justices Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Ali Baqar Najafi, heard Zahir’s appeal against his death sentence.

The bench upheld Zahir’s death sentence handed by two courts previously over the murder charges under Section 302(b) (premeditated murder) of the PPC.

However, it converted the IHC’s decision of a second death penalty over rape charges into a life sentence. The high court had turned Zahir’s 25 years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 376 of the PPC into a death sentence.

While the 10-year jail term for kidnapping in order to murder under Section 364 of the PPC was overturned, Zahir was handed one year of imprisonment for wrongfully confining Noor.

The apex court maintained the earlier orders to Zahir to pay Rs0.5 million to Noor’s legal heir.

The appeals of two co-accused — watchman Mohammad Iftikhar and gardener Jan Mohammad — against their 10-year sentences were also taken up by the SC.

The watchman and gardener’s sentences were reduced, with the bench deciding their detention so far was sufficient and allowing them to be released.