SC suspends order for release of 196 alleged terrorists

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – The Supreme Court (SC) has suspended the Peshawar High Court (PHC) order for release of 196 alleged terrorists. A three-member bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam heard the case in Islamabad on Tuesday. The court has sought record of the cases of these 196 alleged terrorists from the federal government. It also issued notices to all the parties, including the federal government. Justice Qazi Amin – who is part of the three-member bench hearing the matter – observed the terrorists were awarded sentences after trials in military courts. “Every case has is its own facts and evidence,” he remarked. When asked the court whether the terrorists are still in jail, the additional attorney general replied in affirmative as he pleaded the case for suspending the high court’s judgment. Military courts had sentenced these 196 people for their involvement in terrorism, while the Peshawar High Court had ordered for their release. On July 10, the Peshawar High Court, which had earlier acquitted 196 people convicted for terrorism, ruled in its 426-page detailed judgment that the military courts had violated the Pakistan Army Act and rules by not providing the accused with the counsel of choice. The two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar ruled that the convictions in those cases were made despite having no evidence of the accused’s involvement in terrorism and that they were based on malice in law and facts. “The way all convicts have been proceeded right from their arrest from different parts of the country, in the custody of the agencies and landing them in the Internment Centres for months/ years, are not appreciated at all for the purpose of convictions,” the judgment read.