PESHAWAR, Oct 19: A woman sentenced to death for killing her husband has been waiting for the outcome of her appeal for three years.

Since January this year, no hearing has taken place in her appeal before the Federal Shariat Court. She is in jail since 1996.

Appellant Ms Shehnaz was convicted by a trial court in Kohat along with co-accused Aamir who is stated to be the nephew of her husband. The trial court convicted them on Oct 3, 2000.

Initially, their appeals were pending before the Peshawar High Court. But in April last year, a two-member bench of the High Court transferred their case to the Federal Shariat Court as they were also charged under the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979.

Under the law, only the shariat court is empowered to hear their appeals.

On Jan 9, a full bench of the shariat court led by then chief justice Fazal Ilahi Khan took up for preliminary hearing their appeals.

The accused woman appealed that as she was having children of her deceased husband, therefore under the Qisas and Diyat law, she could not be awarded death sentence.

The shariat court had directed the deputy advocate general to conduct an inquiry in that regard.

The woman’s counsel 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 descendant of the offender.

He claimed that the trial court had erred in sentencing her to death as the wali of her deceased husband were their children, who are direct descendants of Ms Shehnaz.

The case could not be fixed for hearing as for about four months the shariat court was short of judges.

Although now the required judges are available in the court, the case has yet to be heard.

According to the prosecution, the officials of Kohat city police station had received a report about the absence of the man killed.

His brother Mr Pervaiz told the police that the victim worked in the UAE and every year he used to visit his family at Mall Mandhi, Kohat.

Mr Pervaiz claimed that last time, his brother returned in 1996, and went missing after a few days.

His wife (the appellant) told his family members that he had left for the United Arab Emirates.

The police claimed to have recovered the victim’s body from a well on the information of co-accused Aamir on Aug 11, 1996.

Later on, the women app-ellant recorded her confess-ional statement on Aug 13, 1996, and Aamir on Aug 14, 1996.

Both the accused had retracted their confessional statements, stating that they were illiterate and the police had received their thumb impressions on some pieces of papers.