PAKISTAN: IHC COMMUTES DEATH PENALTY OF TWO CONVICTS TO LIFE TERM IN OSAMA SATTI MURDER CASE

January 29, 2025:

The Islamabad High Court on January 22, 2025 commuted the death sentence of two convicts in Osama Satti murder case to life imprisonment and acquitting three others.
A two-member IHC bench, comprising Justices – Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan – announced its verdict on appeals filed by the five convicts in Osama Satti murder case.
According to the court ruling, death penalty of – Iftikhar Ahmed and Muhammad Mustafa – commuted to life sentence, while Saeed Ahmed, Shakeel Ahmed, and Mudassir Mukhtar were acquitted of all charges.
The case involved the fatal shooting of Osama Satti, a young man killed by police officers. Earlier, the convicted officers had challenged their sentences, leading to the high court’s revised ruling.
On January 2, 2021, at around 2 am, Osama had gone to drop his friend in Sector H-11. When he was returning, the police officials had intercepted his vehicle in Sector G-10, Srinagar Highway and fired at him from all sides.
The police claimed that they had tried to stop a suspicious vehicle with tinted windows and opened fire when the driver did not stop.
The incident spread like wildfire on the micro-blogging site as micro-bloggers lashed out at the ‘police brutality’ and ‘fake encounter.’