PESHAWAR, Oct 13: Two convicts on death row, including a woman, have been awaiting the outcome of their appeal before the Federal Sharia Court for the past more than seven years.

The condemned prisoners —Shehnaz Ibrar and Aamir Khan — were sentenced to death by a trial court in Kohat on Oct 3, 2000, after they were found guilty of killing the woman’s husband, Ibrar Khan.

They have been in prison for more than 11 years since their arrest in 1996 by the Kohat police on charges of killing the aforementioned man. The woman has three children and due to her continuous imprisonment the children have been living with their close relatives.

Initially, the convicts’ appeals were pending before the Peshawar High Court. In April 2002, a division bench of the high court transferred the case to the Federal Sharia Court as the convicts were also charged under the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979.

Under the law, only the Sharia Court is empowered to hear their appeals. The appeals were taken up for preliminary hearing on Jan 9, 2003, but since then no noteworthy proceeding took place in the case.

The woman has taken the plea that as she had three children from her deceased husband, she could not be awarded a death sentence under the Qisas and Diyat law.

The woman’s case is being pursued by the Voice of Prisoners. Its chairman Noor Alam Khan stated that under Section 306 read with 308 of the Qisas and Diyat law, an accused could not be sentenced to death for killing a person if the wali (legal heir) of the deceased is a direct descendent of the offender. He claimed that the trial court erred in sentencing her to death as the wali of her deceased husband were their children who are descendent of the woman.

Mr Khan said that two convicts had already spent more than 11 years in prison, which was almost equal to life sentence.

According to prosecution, officials of Kohat city police station had received report that the deceased had gone missing. The deceased’s brother, Pervaiz, told the police that his brother was in the UAE and every year he used to visit his family in Mall Mandi, Kohat. He claimed that last time when he returned, he disappeared after a few days and his wife (the appellant) told his family members that he had left for the UAE. The police claimed recovering the body of the deceased from a dry well on the report of Aamir, who is a nephew of the deceased, on August 11, 1996. Later, the woman recorded her statement on August 13 and the male-appellant on August 14, 1996, confessing to their crime. Both the appellants had now retracted their confessional statements, stating that they were illiterate and the police had received their thumb impression on some pieces of paper.