KARACHI, April 10: A division bench of the Sindh High Court allowed bail to one of the four accused in former advocate-general Iqbal Raad’s murder case on Thursday.

The former AG was killed in his law office in Paradise Chambers on Shahrah-I-Iraq on March 10, 2000, along with Advocate Shahzad Khatri and clerk Ghulam Abbas. His son Naheed Iqbal, the complainant in the case, was informed of the incident by a newsman and he saw his father’s body in Civil Hospital’s mortuary. According to eyewitness accounts, four men drove to the office in a small van. Three of them went upstairs and opened fire on the former AG and his associates, killing them on the spot.

The FIR was registered against unknown persons, but subsequently Suhail Ahmed, Ajmal Pahari, Mirza Asif Beg and Mohammad Kaleem were named accused and booked under the provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code and the Anti-terrorism Act. The case is being tried and 16 prosecution witnesses, including Advocate Sathi M. Ishaque and Mehar Elahi, have been examined.

In his bail application, accused Suhail submitted that none of the 16 prosecution witnesses examined so far had implicated him in the offence. The alleged eyewitnesses had denied identifying him at the identification parade or having signed the identification memo.

The division bench, which consisted of Justice Ata-ur-Rahman and Justice Azizullah M. Memon, enlarged the accused on bail in the sum of Rs200,000.

The same bench acquitted Mohammad Saeed Mansoor, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court for suppression of terrorist activities in 1999. He was accused of killing two brothers at Mirpurkhas in 1991. The convict moved the high court in appeal and challenged the trial court judgment as having been based on untenable evidence.

For reasons to be recorded later, the bench set aside the appellant’s conviction and ordered his release if not required in any other case.