The leader of PTI and former MNA Sartaj Gul presented an appeal at the Superior Court of Lahore (LHC) on Saturday against his conviction for an anti -terrorism court (ATC) in a case of disturbances on May 9.
On May 9, 2023, the supporters of PTI, the arrest of the founder of protest of the Imran Khan party, organized violent protests throughout the country, after which thousands were arrested. On July 31 of this year, an ATC in Faisalabad sentenced PTI leaders, including Gul, 10 years in prison for their participation in riots.
Pakistan’s Electoral Commission then disqualified her and other PTI legislators after her convictions.
Gul presented an appeal against his conviction and sentence at the LHC today. A LHC division bank will listen to the case on Monday.
The appeal was presented through Gul’s lawyers, lawyer Ali Zafar and Muhammad Hussain, and begged the court to leave aside his conviction and absorb it in the case.
He said that Gul was not nominated in the case or “found physically participating in the occurrence.” He added that the Prosecutor’s Office did not provide justification to include through the complementary declaration, which affirmed in doubt the authenticity of the occurrence that had not been considered in the trial stage.
He declared that the ATC passed the “contested trial … in a hurried way and Slipshod”, based on three witnesses who had admitted in the interrogation that they had not nominated her, but that she was convicted of her statements with considerable punishment.
“The Prosecutor’s Office has not submitted a case for such punishment,” the petition argued, adding that the witnesses themselves had been badly declared many times and “cheated” the court of first instance with additions and deletions in their statements that made their testimonies not reliable, but finally exonerated the appellant.
“The other ATC court in Sargodha has incredulous to the same witnesses of prosecution … but this is ignored when making (the) contested decision,” he said.
He also declared that there had been no evidence of conspiracy in the case file, challenging his punishment under section 120-b of the Pakistan Criminal Code.
The petition stated that “the Prosecutor’s Office could not establish the participation of the appellant in the occurrence and instigation/abet beyond the shadow of doubt, then there were no reasons to grant punishments to the innocent appellant.”
He declared that the sentence was against “facts and laws and resulted in (a) an erroneous reading of justice” and that, when approved hurriedly, they were not considered material parts of evidence “despite the facts that the Prosecutor’s Office did not achieve inacolable evidence and there was (every) possibility of false implications.”
In particular, he cited the lack of material evidence to establish the intention of firing, instigating and conspiring to facilitate the other accused parts. According to the request, the investigation was “partial” and “defective”, but this was ignored by the court. In addition, he criticized that more weight was given to the testimony statements than to the trial evidence, without “not” properly appreciating “the prosecution’s evidence.
He added that 77 coacked had been acquitted by the same evidence, while Gul was convicted without valid reasoning.
The petition requested that the sentence be on the side since the case had not been shown “beyond the shadow of a doubt” due to the lack of impeccable evidence, and added that the evidence contained contradictions. He called the judgment of the “arbitrary, capricious, indiscreet, not spoken and without legal authority court based on any evidence.”
The petition said Gul was looking for permission from the Court to advance more reasons at the time of the discussion.
She is the first PTI leader in Punjab to present an appeal against her conviction, since the Superior Court of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had arrested the ECP to take measures against the leaders of PTI Ayub and Faraz after they transferred the court.
Gul had previously served as Minister of State for Climate Change in the Ministry of Imran Khan until 2022, when the latter was expelled from the government after a motion of non -confidence.
In June of last year, she was nominated as a parliamentary leader of the Sunita Ittehad Council in the National Assembly for the PTI.
