Noor Mukadam murder case: SC hears Zahir Jaffer’s appeal against death sentence

The Supreme Court resumed hearing on Monday an appeal against the death sentence of Zahir Jaffer, the main suspect in the gruesome murder of Noor Mukadam.

Noor, aged 27 years, was found murdered at Zahir’s Islamabad residence in July 2021, with the probe revealing she was tortured before being beheaded. Zahir’s death sentence by the trial court was upheld by the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which had also turned his jail term over rape charges into a second death penalty.

Justice Hashim Kakar led the three-member bench, which included Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Ali Baqar Najafi.

Barrister Salman Safdar appeared as Zahir’s counsel and presented his arguments. He detailed the punishments handed over to his client — death sentence on murder, jail term turned into death penalty on rape and concurrent 10 years in prison for kidnapping.

Safdar contended that only the charge of murder was mentioned in the first information report (FIR) initially, while other offences were included later. He argued that while the case was registered at 11:30pm that night, before 12:10am, which he said was the stated time of death in Noor’s post-mortem report.

Justice Kakar then indicated that the appeal would be decided soon, remarking that a “relief would be given if due” and noting that the hearing of the reserved seats case was also to be resumed today.

The court then gave a break in the hearing, saying that the proceedings will resume later in the afternoon after a hearing of the reserved seats case.

During the previous hearing, Safdar had sought more time from the court to submit Zahir’s medical reports, claiming he was “mentally ill” and the lower courts that sentenced his client had “ignored” this aspect.

Justice Kakar had observed that a hearing was adjourned “only on the death of a lawyer or a judge” and regretted “unnecessary delays” in court cases. Safdar’s request for more time was then approved with the consensus of both sides.

The appeals of the convicted co-accused in the case were to be taken up as well. An appeal by Noor’s father, retired diplomat Shaukat Mukadam, against the acquittal of Zahir’s father, Zakir Jaffer, is also among the pleas being heard.

In October last year, Noor’s father had urged the SC to take up the murder case pending for more than one and a half years in the top court.

Case history

Noor, 27, was found murdered at a residence in Islamabad’s upscale Sector F-7/4 on July 20, 2021. An FIR was registered later the same day against Zahir Jaffer, who was arrested at the site of the murder.

In February 2022, a district and sessions judge sentenced Jaffer to death for the murder and handed him 25 years of rigorous imprisonment, finding him guilty of rape. His household staff, Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad — co-accused in the case — were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Zahir’s parents, leading businessman Zakir Jaffer and Asmat Adamji, had been indicted by an Islamabad district and sessions court in October 2021 but were later acquitted by the court.

Six officials of Therapy Works, whose employees had visited the site of the murder before police, were also among those indicted by the lower court but were later freed of the charges along with the parents. According to the challan, the parents and the therapy workers tried to conceal the crime and attempted to destroy the evidence.

In March 2023, the IHC, dismissing the Zahir’s appeal, not only upheld the death sentence but also converted his 25-year jail term into another death penalty. The IHC had also rejected the pleas of the main suspect’s staff challenging their conviction.

The next month, Zahir approached the SC against the IHC verdict, insisting that his conviction resulted from “erroneous appreciation” of the case evidence and the high court and trial court could not identify the “fundamental flaws” in the FIR.

The murder

After an FIR was registered in the case and Zahir was arrested, his parents and household staff were also taken into custody by police on July 24, 2021 over allegations of “hiding evidence and being complicit in the crime”. They were made a part of the investigation based on the statement of Noor’s father.

In his complaint, Shaukat had stated that he had gone to Rawalpindi on July 19 to buy a goat for Eidul Azha, while his wife had gone out to pick up clothes from her tailor. When he had returned home in the evening, the couple found their daughter Noor absent from their house in Islamabad.

They had found her cellphone number switched off and started a search for her. Sometime later, Noor had called her parents to inform them that she was travelling to Lahore with some friends and would return in a day or two, according to the FIR.

The complainant said he had later received a call from Zahir, whose family were their acquaintances. Zahir had informed Shaukat that Noor was not with him, the FIR said.

At around 10pm on July 20, the victim’s father had received a call from Kohsar police station, informing him that Noor had been murdered.

Police had subsequently taken the complainant to Zahir’s house in Sector F-7/4 where he discovered that his “daughter has been brutally murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and beheaded”, according to the FIR.

Shaukat, who identified his daughter’s body, had sought the maximum punishment under the law against Zahir for allegedly murdering his daughter.

Police later said that Zahir had confessed to killing Noor, while his DNA test and fingerprints also showed his involvement in the murder.

More to follow