Apex court upholds death sentence for Zainab’s killer
ALI WAS ARRESTED IN JANUARY AFTER HE RAPED AND KILLED MINOR, AND DUMPED HER BODY
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a man who killed eight children, including a 8-year-old girl whose rape and murder drew nationwide condemnation earlier this year.
Yesterday’s court order came months after Imran Ali challenged his death sentence following sentencing in February, claiming his trial was not fair. He still has the right to seek clemency from President Mamnoon Hussain.
Imran was arrested in January after he raped and killed Zainab Ansari and threw her body into a garbage dump in the city of Kasur in eastern Punjab province.
‘Brutalised her’
A three-member bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa and comprising Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah announced the reserved verdict.
The bench stated that “as regards the sentences passed by the trial court against the petitioner which sentences had subsequently been upheld and confirmed by the High Court Lahore, we may observe that the crimes committed by the petitioner were absolutely horrendous and barbaric and the same had been committed with a minor and innocent girl aged about 7/8 years.”
“The petitioner had not only deceitfully kidnapped her but had also brutalised her by committing sodomy and rape with her and had then ultimately killed her mercilessly. In his pleading guilty to the charge as well as in his statement recorded under section 342, Cr. P. C. the petitioner had admitted committing similar offences with eight other minor victims and in that backdrop the petitioner did not deserve any sympathy in the matter of his sentences. This petition is, therefore, dismissed and leave to appeal is refused” the apex court maintained.
“For kidnapping, sodomising, raping and murdering a minor girl namely Zainab Amin, aged 7/8 years, the petitioner was booked in case FIR No. 8 registered at Police Station ADivision, Kasur on 04.01.2018 and after a regular trial he was convicted by the trial court for offences under sections 364-A, 376, 377, 302(b) and 201, PPC and section 7(a) of the AntiTerrorism Act, 1997 and for some of the above mentioned offences he was sentenced to death apart from some other sentences passed against him.”
‘Only prayed for lenience’
The petitioner challenged his convictions and sentences through an appeal which was dismissed by the High Court and all his convictions and sentences recorded by the trial court were upheld and confirmed. Hence, the present petition before the Top Court.
The bench said it observed that even in his arguments addressed before the trial court the learnt counsel for the petitioner had only prayed for some lenience to be shown to the petitioner in the matter of his sentence and no argument had been advanced before the trial court challenging the merits of the prosecution’s case against the petitioner.
It was further observed that in his memorandum of appeal filed by the petitioner before the High Court once again only lenience in the matter of sentence had been prayed for by the petitioner without questioning his convictions recorded by the trial court.
It was for the first time during the arguments before the High Court that the learnt counsel for the petitioner had maintained that admission of guilt by the petitioner before the trial court was a result of coercion but during such arguments he had not provided any detail regarding coercion applied against the petitioner so as to extract a confession, the court said.
Apart from pleading guilty to the charge and making a confession by the petitioner there were many pieces of evidence brought on the record by the prosecution which proved every word of the confession to be correct, the court said.