Wali Khan Babar murder case: SHC overturns death sentence of Faisal Mota, orders retrial

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 16 August 2017

Faisal Mota's death sentence for the murder of journalist Wali Khan Babar has been overturned by the Sindh High Court. The court ordered a retrial after addressing the legal issues surrounding the original judgment.

Summary

KARACHI – The Sindh High Court (SHC) Wednesday overturned the death sentence of the primary accused of journalist Wali Khan Babar’s murder.

Dawn reported that the court overturned the sentence of Faisal Mehmood, alias Mota and ordered a retrial by the lower courts.

Faisal Mota was awarded death sentence in absentia, by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in March 2014 for masterminding the 2011 murder of Babar in Karachi.

The SHC was hearing an appeal filed by Faisal Mota, said to be an MQM worker.

He was arrested and detained in March 2015 in Karachi after Rangers conducted a raid at the MQM headquarters, Dawn said.

Babar who worked for Geo TV was shot dead in Liaquatabad neighborhood on January 13, 2011, as he headed home from work

Faisal Mota’s counsel Advocate Aamir Masoob Qureshi had said in an application in April 2015 that the death sentence was awarded in absentia; therefore the court must declare it illegal.

He said that according to Articles 21-L and 31-A of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, a death sentence cannot be awarded in absentia.