Noman, who stepped up a weight class only this year, won on points over Korean flyweight Kim Tae-Kue, 23-14. Koreans had sent the most fighters to the medal rounds with 10.
Noman, a light-fly gold medallist at the Chowdhry Cup in Baku last year, piled on the points in the second round after an even first two minutes, delivering slick one-two combinations before dancing away from the shorter Korean.
A frustrated Kim, the first of 10 Korean semifinalists, chased the Pakistani all over the ring as he tried to rally in the fourth, but his efforts were in vain.
Pakistani light-welterweight Ashgar Ali Shah later piled on the misery for the hosts by outpointing Shin Myung-Hoon, 23-13, leaving the Koreans still without a chance to fight for gold. The finalists for nine other weight divisions still have to be decided.
A disgusted Shin pushed Shah away as the Pakistani, gold medallist at the Chowdhry Cup in Baku earlier this year tried to shake hands with him after the bout.
Featherweight Meherullah, made it three out of three for Pakistan with three of their boxers still to fight when he won by points, 30-18, over China’s Chen Tongzhou.
Noman will face Somjit Jongjohor of Thailand in the 51kg gold medal bout on Sunday. Somjit, 27, won a tactical battle over China’s Zou Gang, 18-15 on points.
“Because we’re going against Pakistan, we’re only scared of the judges,” Thailand’s Cuban trainer Ismael Salas told AFP.
The amateur boxing boss, Anwar Chowdhry, is a Pakistani. Chowdhry however has vowed to take a hard line against any suspect decisions — and earlier Friday he revealed that judges responsible for a poor call against a Jordanian heavyweight would be banned for four years.
In previous rounds, rival teams have alleged that Korean and Pakistani boxers had been favored by judges, a charge rejected by tournament officials.
“The judge who’s working near the ring has a better view, better than the jury (sitting behind him),” tournament technical director Mohammed Shahib of Syria told AFP.
“These men have to score within a second of a punch being thrown. The people outside cannot see as good as them (judges),” he added.
Salas said: “Anyway, Somjit’s got better experience than the Pakistani boy. I don’t think we’ll have big problems to beat the Pakistani boy. Somjit’s got better boxing skills than him. Anyway Somjit likes to move around. We can get Somjit to fight long distance too.”
Meherullah will face Kazakhstan’s Galib Jafarov in the 57kg final after the latter won by walkover from Syria’s Yaser Shighan.
Shah’s final opponent will be another Kazakh, Nurzhan Karimzhanov, who outpointed Bahit Sarsekbaev of Uzbekistan, 28-18.
In the super-heavyweight boxing division Uzbek Rustam Saidov beat Pakistan’s Mirza Muzafar Iqbal, the fight stopped in the first round. He faces Kazakhstan’s Mukhtarkhan Dildabekov, the Sydney Olympics and defending Games champion, in the final.
Meanwhile, the boxing tournament was plunged into further controversy Friday with Chowdhry labelling a judging decision here as “disgraceful”.
The AIBA president told AFP he would recommend that those responsible be banned for four years.
Later Friday, the controversies that have dogged the tournament took another twist when Uzbekistan officially protested after one of their fighters was stopped in a light-middleweight semifinal.
Hasan, a 23-year-old from Amman, walked sobbing back to the locker room after his defeat on Wednesday.
“What they did to that boxer was disgraceful,” said Chowdhry. “It was absolutely disgraceful but if they don’t make a protest then we can’t take up the case.”
After the fight the Jordanian trainer Omar al Majali ruled out an appeal, saying “it won’t change the result.”
“My boy wants to know why he lost. He was so far ahead on points. You ask anybody in boxing,” he said.
Chowdhry however said if a protest had been lodged the decision would almost certainly have been overturned.
Asked whether the judges who awarded the decision would sit again during the Asian Games he said: “Please don’t ask me that question”.
The judges sitting during the Jordanian fight were from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Japan, Uzbekistan and the Philippines.
The referee was a Malaysian.
On Friday, Uzbekistan lodged an official protest demanding to know why a fight involving their light-middleweight Sirojiddin Naimov was stopped by Bangladeshi referee Mohammad Abdul Lateef.
The semifinal against Thailand’s Suriya Prasathinphimai was halted in the third round for a head blow despite Naimov being on his feet, indicating he was okay.
The Uzbek team rushed to where Chowdhry was sitting to remonstrate.
“We want to know why the fight was stopped. We don’t understand it,” an Uzbek official who didn’t want to be named told AFP.
“It was unfair to stop. There was no reason. Our boxer was indicating he was fine.—AFP/Reuters