Apex court also acquitted the co-accused in the case
Islamabad (Mudassar Chuhdary)_The apex court also acquitted the co-accused in the case.
On Tuesday, a three-member headed by Justice Ijazul Ahsan heard the petition against the death sentence of Shahrukh Jatoi and Siraj Talpur while life imprisonment of others involved in the case
During the proceedings, General Latif Khosa, the counsel for the accused, told the court that the parties have already reached a compromise. Therefore, no punitive actions should be applicable.
He claimed that it was wrong to add terrorism charges in a murder case involving murder and that a decision of a seven-member Supreme Court bench served as a precedent in this regard. Further, the accused did not have any intention to spread terror, the murder was portrayed as a terrorist act.
He maintained, Shahrukh was 18 years old at the time of the incident then, and now he should get a chance to redeem himself.
After hearing all the arguments, the court removed anti-terrorism clauses from the case and acquitted Shahrukh Jatoi and the other accused
Shahrukh Jatoi, Siraj Talpur, and two security guards Murtaza Lashari and Sajjad Talpur were convicted of murdering Shahzeb Khan on December 24, 2012, over a petty argument.
An anti-terrorism court handed them death sentences in the case but a single bench of the Sindh High Court removed the Anti-Terrorism Act clauses from the case and sent it to a trial court.
The trial court then granted them bail in the case. However, the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the case and ordered the Sindh High Court to reexamine the case after civil society raised the issue
In May 2019, the Sindh High Court commuted the death sentences awarded to Shahrukh Jatoi and Siraj Talpur in the Shahzeb Khan murder case to life imprisonment.
The court upheld the life imprisonment of two other suspects in the case.
The four men wanted their death sentences to be overturned. However, the Sindh High Court noted that while Section 302 (Murder) of the PPC is a pardonable offence, and Shahzeb Khan’s family had pardoned the men, the clauses of the Anti-Terrorism Act were not pardonable
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