LHC acquits accused on benefit of doubt

LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) has set aside a death sentence and two life imprisonments of three convicts and ordered to acquit them from murder charges on benefit of doubt, on Saturday.
An FIR had been registered against the accused at Police Station Sadar Samundri, Faisalabad, and according to the prosecution, the accused gunned down Muhammad Sajjad and injured Asif in 2003.
The trial court of Faisalabad on March 29, 2005 had awarded death sentence to Muhammad Ishfaq with a fine of Rs100,000 and awarded life imprisonment to Abdul Rehman and Abdul Rasheed.
They were also directed to pay Rs 50000 each as compensation to legal heirs of the deceased, though the court acquitted their co-accused Nasir Ali and Safi-ur-Rehman.
The bench headed by Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik said, “We are of the considered view that prosecution has miserably failed to prove its case against the appellants.
The ocular account is not in line with the medical evidence while it is the duty of prosecution to prove its case beyond any shadow of doubt and if any doubt arises from the circumstances of the case its benefit has to go to the accused.”
“In our view the prosecution case is full of doubts and the appellants are entitled to the benefit of the same not as a matter of grace but as a matter of right.
Therefore, by extending them the benefit of doubt, we allow the appeal; the convictions and sentences recorded by the trial court are set aside. They are acquitted of the charges leveled against them. They be released forthwith if not required to be detained in any other case,” the bench ordered.
The bench observed that in the FIR it was mentioned that a bullet hit the deceased’s chin and the statement was supported by two prosecution witnesses, but according to the post mortem report, the injury on the deceased’s chin was caused when he fell.
The bench also observed that according to the prosecution, the wound on deceased’s body was blackened by a bullet, but the distance between the deceased and the attacker was 13 feet; much beyond the blackening range. The bench noted that two metal pieces, recovered from the dead body and handed over to the police, were not sent to the forensic science laboratory with the pistols for expert opinion; that could have furnished as an important evidence in this case.