Zahir Zakir Jaffer sought on Tuesday a review of the verdict of the Supreme Court that confirmed his death sentence for the horrible murder of Noor Mukadam in Islamabad.
Noor, 27, was found murdered in the Residence of Islamabad de Zahir in July 2021, with the investigation revealing that she was tortured by him before being decapitated. Zahir’s death sentence by the Court of First Instance had already been confirmed by the Superior Court of Islamabad (IHC).
The request for review of 47 pages, a copy of which is available with Dawn.comIt was presented by the lawyer Khawaja Haris on behalf of Zahir under article 188 of the Constitution (review of SC judgments or orders). The state and father of Noor, Shaukat Ali Muqadam, were appointed surveyed.
The petition argued that the question of the supposed “lack of liquidation of the mind or the mental capacity of Zahir that was raised before the SC in a request had not been addressed and was given a little request.”
In addition, he said that “the hype created on social networks […] The hate constantly created towards the petitioner throughout the investigation and the trial (and even in the appeal stage) “, which violated Zahir’s right to a fair trial and due process.
“In [the] Hurry process, mistakes were made in the investigation and during the trial ”, the petition cited a verdict of another case.
For violation positions, the revision declaration argued that it was “obvious of the registration that there is no evidence in the registration in proof of this accusation.”
The SC had switched Zahir’s death sentence for the position of life imprisonment, as decided by the Court of First Instance, but did not acquit it from it. While he was acquitted of the 10 -year judgment for the kidnapping, a period of one year for unfair confinement was transmitted under section 342 of the Pakistan Criminal Code, according to the verdict SC.
Zahir’s statement argued that video recordings based on which the SC confirmed the death sentence had not been tested during the trial and were not provided to any of the defendants.
He said that the APEX court ruling was widely based on video recordings stored in a digital video recorder (DVR) and in clips that the Prosecutor’s Office said they transferred from the DVR to a hard drive, providing the “most essential link in the chain of circumstances” in which the SC gave its verdict.
“The portions of these so -called recordings, based on the inference of ‘last view’ have undergone the petitioner, were never played during the trial, rather, only the Prosecutor’s Office was led by the Prosecutor’s Office,” the statement declared.
The SC, in its detailed verdict, had emphasized the importance of digital evidence by declaring that the footage can be admissible as primary evidence under the “theory of silent witnesses”, a rule of evidence that allows the photographic video or other recorded evidence to be admitted as a substantive test of what it leaves, without the need for a testimony of an eye.
Judge Muhammad Hashim Kakar, who led the three -member bank, observed that the theory of the authentication of the silent witnesses had developed in almost all the jurisdictions in the last 25 years to allow the photos to “speak for themselves.”
The SC had also noticed that Zahir neglected to provide any explanation of the victim’s presence in his residence and the consequent recovery of his body from the facilities.
Zahir is also contemplating to present a request for mercy before President Asif Ali Zardari, with a letter from the prison authorities that seek the formation of a medical board so that their opinion could be included in the statement. A presidential forgiveness under article 45 of the Constitution could provide Zahir Pardon or a respite, or send, suspend or travel his sentence.
