ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed all the 12 appeals in two cases of assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf and upheld the death penalty awarded to the convicts by a military court.

The appellants had challenged their conviction by military court but their petitions were dismissed by the LHC. The present appeals were directed against the order of the LHC.

“For reasons to be recorded later, the impugned order of the Lahore High Court is maintained and, consequently, the appeals are dismissed,” said a bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad in its short order.

On the last hearing, the apex court had observed that before touching the merit of the appeals, it would first decide a law point if it had appellate jurisdiction over the decisions of military courts.

In its short order on Monday, the bench upheld the order passed by the Lahore High Court, holding that under Article 199 of the Constitution, civil courts had no jurisdiction to issue writ against orders passed by military courts.

12 convicts, who filed five appeals in the apex court, had been arrested for their involvement in two abortive assassination attempts on the president in December 2003.

Earlier, counsel for the appellants argued that they should have been tried under Section 131 of the Pakistan Penal Code.