Mumtaz Qadri Awarded Death By ATC Pakistan

RAWALPINDI -An anti-terrorism court (ATC) Saturday awarded death sentence to Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri in the murder case of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, sparking protests in almost all major cities of the county.

ATC No 2 Judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah handed down death penalty to Qadri on two counts for killing Taseer on January 4 this year and creating a scene of terrorism under section 302 of Pakistan Penal Court (PPC) and Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) Section 7 during in-camera trial held at Adyala Jail amid tight security. The court also imposed Rs 200,000 fine on Qadri. Police were deployed at the jail gate to prevent any break-in. After Qadri was sentenced, the judge left through the back door. Mumtaz Qadri, who was on guard duty in Taseer’s Elite Force guards at the time of killing, shot the governor down outside a an upmarket restaurant close to his residence in the leafy capital Islamabad for his views on the blasphemy laws. Mumtaz was arrested on the spot with the weapon. He confessed killing Taseer under oath.

During the in-camera hearing of the Taseer murder case, the ATC said that the murder, being a heinous crime, had no justification to it. The court said that no one could be given the license to kill someone on any condition. Therefore, the killer cannot be pardoned as he has committed a heinous crime by murdering the governor.

Qadri tried to justify the murder by stating that he had killed him for supporting Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman having five children and sentenced to death in November 2010, who Taseer had projected as having been wrongly convicted of committing blasphemy.

According to Qadri’s statement, he had approached Taseer on the evening of January 4 and tried to talk to him about his very public support for Aasia Bibi and his advocacy of reform – not repeal – of the controversial blasphemy laws.

During the trial held on September 24 last, ATC Judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah adjourned the hearing till October 1, 2011 after completion of arguments of defence council. The judge ordered the prosecutor Saiful Malook advocate, who could not appear before the court, to submit his arguments in written with the court in the case on the next date of hearing. A total of 43 witnesses were presented before the court by prosecution, however, the court recorded statement of only 14 witnesses. Legal experts say that the accused has seven days to appeal against the verdict. “The court has awarded my client with death. The court announced the death sentence for him,” Shujaur Rehman, one of Qadri’s lawyers, told the media. He said he will lodge an appeal in a high court against the verdict,” the lawyer said.

Talking to The Nation, Raja Shujahur Rehman termed the verdict as ‘unprecedented’, saying, “during today’s proceeding the court had to listen to the arguments of the prosecution and close the case instead of delivering its verdict.”

He said that in routine the defence counsels are told about the ATC judge’s departure schedule for Adyala Jail to take up the case and after confirmation the defence counsels reached jail before the time. Despite repeated contacts from 08:00 to 10:00am made by Qadri’s lawyers to know the departure schedule of the judge, the staff informed them the judge was in his chamber and did not leave for Adyala Jail, he added.

“The defence counsel was informed by the court only after awarding death sentence to Qadri,” Shujah said, adding that defence counsel was going to file a plea with the court under Section 23 of ATA during trial.

Briefing about details, Shujah informed that it was mentioned in the application that terrorism charges were not proved against Qadri in the case that was why the court could not held the trial. Therefore, it was prayed to shift the case to a Sessions Court, he added. “I wonder why the judge made this unprecedented haste in delivering his verdict in the absence of defence lawyers. What kind of fear he (judge) was feeling that forced him to sentence Qadri to death secretly,” Raja Shujah-ur Rehman stated.

He told this scribe that he and his colleague Tariq Dhamial also met with Qadri at Adyala Jail. He said that Qadri welcomed them with a smiling face in the cell and first recited Sura-e-Kauser and then presented Na’at Sharif.

“I have a complaint with you people why you came to meet me without sweets? Now I request you to go back to your homes and distribute sweets among the people as today Allah Almighty has accepted my sacrifice,” Shujah quoted Qadri as saying during their meeting at Adyala Jail.

The defence counsel informed that father and brothers of Qadri were also present on the occasion in the cell. “The father of Qadri said “Allah-o-Akbar” aloud thrice before hugging his son. On this, Qadri swiftly hugged his father and asked him not to worry as the sentence is not a death sentence rather it is martyrdom,” Shujah quoted Qadri as saying.

Talking to The Nation, Tariq Dhamial, defence counsel for Qadri, told that they would file and appeal against the verdict in the Islamabad High Court within 10 days.

Whether Qadri will hang will remain open even after the appeals process is exhausted. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan has had an informal moratorium on executions in place since late 2008, before which it had hanged at least 36 people that year. No one has ever been sent to the gallows under Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Those sentenced to death have had their sentences overturned or commuted.

Hundreds of charged workers of many religious groups came on roads of Rawalpindi to protest against the verdict while police and other law enforcement agencies did not try to control the enraged protesters. The protesters expressed their outrage by burning tyres on almost all main roads, blocking traffic, hitting windowpanes of public and private transport with sticks and iron rods and ripping portraits of government figures.

In Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh area, where former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, about 1,000 angry Qadri supporters blocked a main road with burning tyres. Shouting slogans against the government and the judge who sentenced Qadri, they forced shops to shut down, while stick-wielding protesters attacked passing vehicles. They also burnt the monument of PPP slain Chairperson Benazir Bhutto at Liaquat Bagh.

They demanded the president grant clemency to him. “By punishing one Mumtaz Qadri, you will produce a thousand Mumtaz Qadris!” a man shouted through a megaphone outside the jail.

Sunni Tehrik and other religious parties rejected the verdict calling it worse judgment than the English court which awarded death sentence to Alamdin Ghazi decades ago. “This decision was made to please the Jewish lobby,” Sahibzada Ataur Rehman, a leader of the Sunni Tehreek, was quoted as saying.

Sunni Tehrik, Tehrik-i-Islam Pakistan, Jamia-e-Rizwiya Ziaul Uloom, Shahab-i-Islami Pakistan, Anjuman Tulba-i-Islam and other religious parties have announced to stage protest against the verdict that they demanded to be revised. Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), while rejecting the ATC verdict, announced to launch a countrywide movement and observe a wheel-jam strike in the country on October 7.


Reference From www.nation.com.pk