PAKISTAN. SINDH HIGH COURT MAINTAINS DEATH SENTENCE OF LJ ACTIVISTS

the anti-terrorism appellate (ATA) bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) in Karachi, Pakistan, upheld the death sentence of two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) activists and enhanced to death the life term of a third for killing a director of laboratories of the ministry of defence in 2001.
Mohammad Shahid Hanif had been sentenced to life imprisonment while Talah Hussain and Khalil Ahmed had been sentenced to death by an Anti-Terrorism Court-III on April 15, 2002.
The appellants, who were driving a motorbike, had shot dead Syed Zafar Hussain as he was travelling to work on July 30, 2001.
Safdar Hussain Shah, the director's driver, had identified the accused during the trial.
Based on his evidence, the court had convicted all of the accused, but awarded Mohammad Shahid Hanif a lesser punishment ruling that, as he was driving the bike, he could not have participated in firing on the car.
However, the SHC's ATA bench comprising Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro and Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaferi, rejected this reasoning and condemned him to death holding that his intention was common to that of the two convicts sentenced to death.