Thursday, October 24, 2013

Shahzeb Khan murder: SC rejects Jatoi's request to dismiss death sentence

KARACHI: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday rejected Shahrukh Jatoi’s request to declare the anti-terrorism court’s (ATC) decision to sentence him to death in the Shahzeb Khan murder case null and void, Express News reported. Jatoi’s council had claimed that the ATC had made their decision without proper evidence or witness accounts. The SC bench that decided to dismiss the claim consisted of Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmani. Last year, on December 25, 20-year-old Shahzeb Khan was gunned down by Shahrukh Jatoi, who was accompanied by his friends, Siraj and Sajjad Talpur. The young men had a fight after the Talpur’s servant, Ghulam Murtaza Lashari, teased Shahzeb’s sister. On June 7, Judge Ghulam Mustafa Memon of ATC-III had handed capital punishment to Shahrukh Jatoi and Nawab Siraj Talpur for murdering 20-year-old Shahzeb Khan. The court had also given life imprisonment to Nawab Sajjad Talpur and Ghulam Murtaza Lashari. On June 12, Shahrukh Jatoi had challenged the verdict by filing an appeal in the Sindh High Court. The appeal filed by Advocate Shaukat Zubedi had stated that the conviction and sentence awarded to Shahrukh Jatoi was not justified by the evidence placed on record as the trial court’s judge had misread the evidence. “Whenever doubts came up in the case, the court ruled in favour of the prosecution whereas according to the established principles of law, the benefit of the doubt is always given to the accused,” he had argued. On September 9, Shahzeb’s parents – DSP Aurangzeb Khan and Ambreen Aurangzeb – had decided to pardon the culprits in the “name of Allah,” without claiming the amount of Diyat or Qisas.

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