PAKISTAN: DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED IN BROTHER-IN-LAW’S MURDER CASE

December 30, 2019:

The Sindh High Court has commuted the death sentence of a man to life in prison in a murder case, the Dawn reported on 29 December 2019.
An additional district and sessions court had sentenced Wajid Ali to death in November last year for killing his brother-in-law Zafar Iqbal over a family dispute at his home in a Shershah locality in October 2016.
The convict through his lawyer challenged the death penalty before the high court and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings, the two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha converted the capital punishment into life in prison on the grounds that the prosecution could not prove the motive for the killing.
The bench in its order observed that eyewitnesses testified against the appellant before the trial court and he had not disputed the presence of witnesses at the crime scene and the medical evidence as well as the recovery of crime weapon also corroborated the evidence of prosecution witnesses.
It further said that the lawyer for appellant did not press the appeal on merits due to overwhelming evidence against him and instead the counsel pleaded for reduction in the sentence.
The bench stated that the prosecution had established its case against the appellant, but it commuted the death sentence since the prosecution could not be able to prove the motive behind the killing of the victim which appeared to be raised out of a family dispute on the spot.