PTI leader and former MNA Zartaj Gul filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday against her conviction by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in a May 9 riots case.
On May 9, 2023, PTI supporters, protesting party founder Imran Khan’s arrest, staged violent protests throughout the country, following which thousands were arrested. On July 31 this year, an ATC in Faisalabad sentenced PTI leaders, including Gul, to 10 years of imprisonment for their involvement in the riots.
The Election Commission of Pakistan later disqualified her and other PTI lawmakers following their convictions.
Gul filed an appeal against her conviction and sentencing in the LHC today. A division bench of the LHC will hear the case on Monday.
The appeal was filed through Gul’s lawyers, Barrister Ali Zafar and Muhammad Hussain, and pleaded the court to set aside her conviction and acquit her in the case.
It said that Gul was not nominated in the case or “found physically participant in the occurrence”. It added that no justification was provided by the prosecution for her being included through the supplementary statement, which it claimed cast doubt on the authenticity of the occurrence which had not been considered at the trial stage.
It stated that the ATC passed the “impugned judgment … in a hasty and slipshod manner”, based on three witnesses who had admitted in cross-examination that they had not nominated her but she was nevertheless convicted on their statements with a hefty punishment.
“The prosecution has failed to make out a case for such a punishment,” the petition argued, adding that the witnesses themselves had many times misstated and “cheated” the trial court with additions and deletions in their statements making their testimonies unreliable, but ultimately all exonerated the appellant.
“The other ATC court at Sargodha has disbelieved the same prosecution witnesses … but this is ignored in making (the) impugned decision,” it said.
It also stated that no evidence for conspiracy had been brought forward on the case file, challenging her punishment under section 120-B of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The petition pleaded that as “the prosecution also failed to establish the involvement of the appellant in the occurrence and instigation/abetment beyond the shadow of doubt, then there were no reasons to award punishment to the innocent appellant.”
It stated that the judgment was against “facts and law and resulted in (a) misreading of justice” and that, being passed hastily, material parts of evidence were not considered “despite the facts that the prosecution failed to adduce unimpeachable evidence and there was (every) chance of false implication”.
In particular, it cited the lack of material evidence to establish the intention to abet, instigate and conspire to facilitate the other accused parties. According to the petition, the investigation was “biased” and “flawed” but this was ignored by the court. It further criticised that more weight was given to witness statements than evidence by the court, failing to “properly appreciate” the prosecution’s evidence.
It added that 77 co-accused had been acquitted based on the same evidence, while Gul was convicted without valid reasoning.
The petition called for the judgment to be set aside as the case had not been proven “beyond the shadow of a doubt” due to a lack of unimpeachable evidence, adding that the evidence contained contradictions. It called the judgment of the court “arbitrary, capricious, indiscrete, non-speaking and without lawful authority based on no evidence”.
The petition noted that Gul was seeking leave from the court to advance further grounds at the time of argument.
She is the first PTI leader in Punjab to file an appeal against her conviction as the Peshawar High Court in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had halted the ECP from taking any action against PTI leaders Ayub and Faraz after they moved the court.
Gul had previously served as the minister of state for climate change in Imran Khan’s ministry until 2022, when the latter was ousted from government following a no-confidence motion.
In June of last year, she was nominated as the parliamentary leader of the Sunni Ittehad Council in the National Assembly by the PTI.
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