RIYADH, 3 June 2005 — A Pakistani expatriate living in the Kingdom, who has not been able to return home for the last eight years due to a threat to his life, has appealed to Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf to provide protection so that he could appear as a witness in the Supreme Court in a murder case involving his brother.
A copy of the petition was sent to Arab News and the Pakistan Embassy here by Abdul Rasheed who said the accused, Gohar Sultan, has threatened to kill him should he appear as a witness in the murder of his brother Muhammad Khurshid. As a result, the case has been adjourned repeatedly due to lack of evidence resulting from his absence as a witness.
The case arose out of the murder of his brother in a financial dispute involving payment of SR142,000 (Rs.1.62 million) due to him from the accused.
Rasheed, who works as a plumber in Riyadh, told Arab News that the Kingdom has vital information on Sultan, since he had fled to Saudi Arabia two days after committing the murder of his brother.
“Two months later I got him arrested by the Saudi police who had him imprisoned in the Riyadh jail. He stayed there for one and a half years before he was repatriated to Pakistan through Interpol to appear at the trial against him in the Attock court.”
In the petition, Rasheed said that since the Saudi government has a file on him, it could be transferred to the Supreme Court. “This file is very important, since it contains the evidence of Gohar’s involvement in the crime based on his own confession.”
According to the petition, “the main reason for overturning the case was the fact that the judges handling the case accepted bribes from the accused, Gohar Sultan, and acquitted him of the murder charge.”
In the meantime, the petition points out, “my mother Aksar Jan filed a case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan asking for the dismissal of the Lahore High Court verdict. Since Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan has been suspended by the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, for involvement in bribery in a different case, there is every ground to believe that Justice Chowhan must have accepted a bribe to acquit Gohar Sultan as well.”
The petition concludes: “I therefore appeal to Your Excellency to direct the Supreme Court of Pakistan to bring forward my case for early hearing. I would like to come to Pakistan to see my family whom I have not met for the last eight years due to the threat to my life. I fervently hope that Your Excellency will look into the case and pass the necessary orders to bring justice that has been delayed for the last eight years.”
