KARACHI: The Supreme Court exonerated on Wednesday a man who was convicted of murder and handed down life imprisonment by a sessions court in 2005.
The man, identified as Intezar, had confessed to his crime before the judicial magistrate.
However, the magistrate didn’t meet the legal requirements at the time of confession, remarked Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, who was heading the three-member bench hearing the case at theKarachi Registry today.
“The judicial magistrate didn’t mentally prepare the suspect before the confession,” remarked Justice Khosa.
In 2005, Intezar was alleged to have killed a businessman named Hafeezur Rehman over a monetary dispute.
Hearing the case, the sessions court had sentenced the suspect to life imprisonment.
The verdict was then challenged in the high court, which ordered the suspect’s acquittal due to lack of evidence. However, that order was challenged in the apex court.
The court quashed today the petition challenging the suspect’s acquittal by the high court.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had acquitted Asma Nawab and two others in a case pertaining to the murder of her parents and brother after 20 years.
In 1998, Nawab was alleged to have orchestrated the murder of her family members over a love marriage.
Asma, Muhammad Farhan Khan and Javed Ahmed Siddiqui, had appealed against their death sentences in the apex court.
Hearing the case at Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry, the bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, accepted their appeals, nullified their sentences and ordered the immediate release of the suspects.
The court ruled that there was no concrete evidence against the suspects, and the evidence presented before the court had several loopholes.