ISLAMABAD: After a sessions court on Tuesday sentenced Umar Hayat to death for the murder of 17-year-old social media influencer Sana Yousaf, the detailed order made public on Wednesday observed that the accused deserved “no leniency” as there were “no mitigating circumstances” in the case. Last year, Umar Hayat — son of a retired government official and a TikToker himself — was arrested a day after 17-year-old Yousaf was shot dead in her Islamabad house on June 2, 2025.

The 23-year-old convict had confessed before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) that he shot Yousaf. In his statement, he admitted developing a one-sided obsession with her after online interactions, and said jealousy and suspicion drove him to commit the crime.

On Monday, he retracted the earlier confessional statement, but was found guilty and handed a death sentence on Tuesday. Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka, who announced the verdict a day earlier on May 19, noted in his 27-page judgment that the prosecution had produced “overwhelming evidence” against the 23-year-old convict — including two eyewitnesses, a judicial confession, forensic proof, and recovery of the murder weapon and stolen mobile phone.

A copy of the detailed judgment is available with Dawn. In a significant observation, the court noted that the accused was not nominated in the first information report (FIR), which actually strengthened the prosecution’s case rather than weakening it. “The behavior of the complainant… was natural and devoid of any mala fide,” the judgment said, quoting the Supreme Court’s (SC) ruling in Muhammad Wajid v. the State.

The court observed, “Had there been any ulterior motive or enmity of the complainant with the appellant, [she] could have falsely implicated him from the outset.” On the contrary, no one was nominated in the FIR.

This bona fides of the prosecution, the judge held, reinforced the authenticity of the case.

The court also addressed the accused’s retraction of his judicial confession, which was made before a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC in July 2025 and withdrawn a day before the verdict.

Relying on Article 91 of the Qanoon-e-Shahadat Order, 1984, the judge held that a confession recorded by a magistrate “in accordance with law” is presumed to be true. The burden to prove coercion or inducement lay on the accused, the court said, and Hayat had failed to discharge it.

Citing the SC’s judgment in Sheraz Tufail v. the State and the case of Manjeet Singh, the judge observed that “a retracted confession either judicial or extra-judicial, if found truthful and confidence-inspiring … can be used for conviction without looking for any other sort of corroboration”.

However, the court added that in this case, the judicial confession was “corroborated by the recoveries, the medical evidence and the motive”, as well as by two eyewitnesses.

In another notable finding, the court relied on fingerprint evidence lifted from a mirror inside the victim’s bedroom.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2026