Zahir Jaffer, convicted of murdering Noor Muqadam, filed an appeal against his death sentence in the Supreme Court.
Jaffer has appealed that his sentence ‘in the Interest of justice’ should be overturned because he was conviceted on the basis of a faulty FIR.
The appeal says that the prosecution’s case rests on ’weak and incomplete case of ‘circumstantial evidence’ and the First Information Report was filed on the basis of ‘hearsay evidence’.
It says that any motive that Jaffer could have for the killing was not proven and that the ‘parties had cordial relationship with no enmity whatsoever’.
The also cites cases such as Bakht Munir vs The State, where an act of violence was jedged to be a spur of the moment decision and says that whatever happened between Noor and Jaffer immediately before her murder was not made part of the prosecution.
Jaffer’s lawyers have also argued that the CCTV footage of the incident presented in court was not complete and that selected bits were presented in court.
The appeal also mentions that Jaffer’s family were subjected to a ‘media trial’ and that ‘social media hype’ resulted in miscarriage of justice. It also says that the death sentence handed to Zahir Jaffer is ‘excessively harsh’.
Noor had been found dead on July 20, 2021 in Islamabad. Zahir Jaffer was arrested from the scene and sentenced to death by a sessions court for murder in February 2022. A divisional bench of the Islamabad High Court had upheld the decision in March 2023.
