After 20 yrs, Pakistan SC acquits woman, 2 others in triple murder case

Karachi: A Pakistani woman and two others were acquitted by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, 20 years after a triple murder case was registered against them. In 1998, Asma Nawab was alleged to have orchestrated the murder of her parents and brother over a love marriage, Geo TV reported.

In 1999, the sessions court had ordered double death sentences for Asma, Farhan Khan and Javed Ahmed Siddiqui.

The Sindh High Court had rejected their appeal against the death sentence in 2015 and the appeal against that order was eventually taken up by the Supreme Court.

Hearing the case at apex court's Karachi Registry, the bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, accepted their appeals, nullified their sentences and ordered their immediate release, the channel said.

The court ruled that there was no concrete evidence against the suspects, and the evidence presented before the court had several loopholes. The court also found that the weapons recovered had no connection to the case, it added.

Farhan's fingerprints were taken two days after his arrest, the court ruled, adding that the prosecution failed to prove its allegations.

During the court proceedings, Justice Khosa remarked that police arrests suspects but fails to present evidence against them before courts. The suspects are released for lack of evidence but it is said courts acquit suspects, he asserted.

Justice Khosa said that suspects have been facing jail time since last 20 years without any evidence. Asma was the only woman facing the death sentence in Sindh province.