The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of Zahir Jaffer for the gruesome murder of Noor Mukadam nearly four years ago that had shaken the nation.<\/p>\n
After the ruling by the top court, a presidential pardon under Article 45 of the Constitution could possibly provide Zahir pardon, or reprieve, or remit, suspend or commute his sentence.<\/p>\n
Noor, aged 27 years, was found murdered at Zahir\u2019s Islamabad residence in July 2021, with the probe revealing she was tortured before being beheaded. Zahir\u2019s death sentence by the trial court had already been upheld by the Islamabad High Court (IHC).<\/p>\n
A three-member bench, led by Justice Hashim Kakar and including Justices Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Ali Baqar Najafi, presided today over the third hearing of Zahir\u2019s appeal against his death sentence.<\/p>\n
The bench upheld Zahir\u2019s death sentence handed by two courts previously over the murder charges under Section 302(b) (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).<\/p>\n
However, it converted the IHC\u2019s decision of a second death penalty over rape charges into a life sentence . The high court had turned Zahir\u2019s 25 years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 376 of the PPC into a death sentence.<\/p>\n
The 10-year jail term for kidnapping in order to murder under Section 364 of the PPC was reduced to one year. The trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs100,000 in February 2022.<\/p>\n
The apex court maintained the earlier orders to Zahir to pay Rs0.5 million to Noor\u2019s legal heir.<\/p>\n
The appeals of two co-accused \u2014 watchman Mohammad Iftikhar and gardener Jan Mohammad \u2014 against their 10-year sentences were also taken up by the SC.<\/p>\n
The watchman and gardener\u2019s sentences were reduced, with the bench deciding their detention so far was sufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, by virtue of that, both will be released,\u201d said Advocate Shah Khawar, the lawyer for Noor\u2019s father, retired diplomat Shaukat Mukadam.<\/p>\n
Zahir\u2019s counsel, Barrister Salman Safdar, concluded his arguments today, while Khawar also presented his.<\/p>\n
A short order on today\u2019s hearing is yet to be issued. It is expected to detail the court\u2019s decision on an appeal by Shaukat against the acquittal of Zahir\u2019s father, Zakir Jaffer.<\/p>\n
During the course of the trial, judges made demeaning comments about Noor for spending time alone with Jaffer, with Justice Kakar on Tuesday adding that it was \u201cagainst our values\u201d, according to AFP.<\/p>\n
Farzana Bari, a women\u2019s rights activist who attended the hearing, said the comments imply \u201cthat the man has some legitimate right to detain her, which is a harmful and regressive notion\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch judicial attitudes contribute to a long and exhausting struggle for justice, often leading victims to lose hope and give up along the way,\u201d she told the outlet.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Shafaq Zaidi, a childhood friend of Noor, told AFP outside the court: \u201cThis is a victory for all the women of Pakistan. It shows that our justice system can deliver justice and should give women more confidence in the legal process<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was our last resort, and it\u2019s hard to put into words what this outcome means to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Human rights defender, Tahira Abdullah, in a statement, said: \u201cIt is a milestone achievement in Pakistani women\u2019s ongoing struggle for justice \u2014 and also against entrenched patriarchy, sexism and misogyny, openly expressed in court by the defence legal team today as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the previous hearing, the accused\u2019s lawyer contended that no medical board was formed to assess his client\u2019s mental state. Justice Kakar had observed, \u201cA daughter was mercilessly murdered.\u201d<\/p>\n
In October last year, Noor\u2019s father had urged the SC to take up the murder case pending for more than one and a half years in the top court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of Zahir Jaffer for the gruesome murder of Noor Mukadam nearly four years ago that had shaken the nation. After the ruling by the top court, a presidential pardon under Article 45 of the Constitution could possibly provide Zahir pardon, or reprieve, or remit, suspend or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-and-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9329,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9327\/revisions\/9329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}