SC grants conditional permission to military courts verdicts

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) granted military courts conditional permission to announce reserved verdicts against civilians facing trial in May 9 incidents.

The bench, led by Justice Aminuddin Khan and including Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Mussarat Hilali, and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, heard intra-court appeals against the decision of its five-member bench nullifying an earlier apex court decision declaring military trials of civilians unconstitutional.

The Attorney General told the court that a total of 105 accused are in the custody of the army, among them there are 20 people who can be released before Eid. For the release of these 20 persons, there are 3 stages that will have to be followed.

The Attorney General further said that the first step for the release of the accused would be the pronouncement of a reserved decision, the second step would be its confirmation and the third step would be to grant concessions to those with lesser sentences by the Army Chief.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General requested the military courts to allow the reserved judgments, to which the court said that even if the permission is granted, it will be subject to the final decision of the appeals.

The court asked the attorney general to give the names of those who are to be released, the attorney general said that he cannot give the names until the decisions are received from the military courts, those whose sentence is one year will be given concession.

The court said that the Attorney General had assured that statutory concessions would be granted to those with lesser sentences, allowing the verdict to be delivered subject to the final decision on appeals.

Later, the Supreme Court gave conditional permission to military courts to pronounce reserved judgments and said that judgments should be pronounced only in those cases in which the nominees can be released before Eid.

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