SC upholds death penalty for Sarabjit

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday dismissed Indian national Sarabjit Singh’s review petitions for non-prosecution and upheld the Anti-Terrorism Court’s (ATC) verdict of awarding death sentence to the Indian spy.The three-member bench, comprising Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed, Justice Mohammad Qaim Jan Khan and Justice Zawar Hussain Jaffery, decided this while hearing three criminal review petitions of Manjeet Singh alias Sarabjit Singh.Earlier, the court had directed its office to inform the counsel for Sarabjit Singh to appear before the court. However, the counsel, Rana Abdul Hameed, failed to appear in the case due to which the court dismissed the review petitions for non-prosecution.The court, however, observed that it had found no grounds for hearing the review petitions. Sarabjit Singh filed the petitions against the death sentence awarded to him for his involvement in three bomb blasts in Pakistan.Singh, a resident of Bhikiwand, Amritsar, was arrested on August 30, 1990, from the Kasur border area. According to the prosecution, Singh had confessed that he was trained by the Indian Military Intelligence (IMI) and RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), to conduct multiple bomb blasts in Lahore, Kasur and Faisalabad in which 14 persons were killed and 89 others wounded.A Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court sentenced him to death on October 3, 1991. Singh challenged his conviction in the Supreme Court which, on September 27, 2005, dismissed the petitions as appeal was time barred for 620 days. Another bench had earlier upheld his death sentence.His firsts review petition had already been dismissed whereas his other three identical review petitions were dismissed on Wednesday. In the Yakki Gate case, the spy was accused of planting an explosive device near a fruit shop belonging to Mohammad Hanif that resulted in the death of three persons.In its detailed judgment upholding the death sentence, the apex court had held that the conviction awarded to the Indian spy was well deserved and did not warrant any leniency. Later, on March 6, 2008, the then president Pervez Musharraf had rejected Singh’s mercy petition and signed his death warrant, but his hanging was put off after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had intervened in the case.

source: http://www.thenews.com.pk