LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday dismissed the federal government’s intra court appeal challenging a single bench’s order of recalculating the sentence of a man convicted for attacking former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf in 2003, besides government amnesties/remissions awarded to the convict and fixing his probable release date.
A single bench of Justice Shahid Hameed Dar on September 5, 2016 had passed the impugned verdict disposing of a habeas corpus petition by a lady, Saira Khan, challenging detention of her son Adnan Khan even after completion of his sentence in the Musharraf attack case.
The federal government had challenged this order and the division bench dismissed it and withdrew an earlier stay granted against the implementation of the single bench’s decision.
Before the single bench, counsel for the petitioner Mujahid Waseem said that Adnan had undergone a 15-year jail term handed down by a military court but the authorities were not ready to release him.
He said that the military court did not give the petitioner’s son benefit in reduction of imprisonment under Section 382-B of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).
He pointed out that under this provision the period an accused spends behind the bars as an under-trial prisoner should be included in the sentence.
He said that Adnan was arrested in 2003, and according to this provision he had undergone his sentence.
He submitted that a single bench of the LHC had dismissed a petition of the convict to this effect, but a division bench later allowed his intra court appeal, directing the jail authorities to implement the reduction in imprisonment under this provision.
He submitted that the government challenged the decision before the Supreme Court, but its appeal was dismissed.
He claimed that now Adnan was being detained illegally, as he had already undergone his sentence. He requested the court to order the jail authorities to release the petitioner’s son.
Musharraf had escaped an attack on his life on December 14, 2003 near Jhanda Chichi Bridge, Rawalpindi. Seven of the 12 convicts have been executed in the Musharraf attack case so far.
