Navy awards death sentence to five officers over dockyard attack case

The alleged perpetrators of the September 6, 2014, Karachi Naval Dockyard attack case have been sentenced to death by a Navy tribunal and the report surfaced on Monday. The hearing took place in secrecy and the entire case was kept hidden even from the convicted felons’ families.

The father of one of the convicts Retired Major Saeed Ahmed, talked to reporters, giving details of the case. Ahmed said that his son, Sub-Lieutenant Hammad Ahmed and four other naval officers had been convicted of the attack. He further elaborated that the charges against the five officers included; mutiny, hatching a conspiracy, carrying weapons in the dockyard and having links with the militant Islamic State group.

It was also reported by media sources that that the culprits were planning to hijack the warship PNS Zulfiqar, in order to use it in an attack on one of the US navy’s refuel ships. During the attack, two militants were killed and four others were apprehended by security forces.

According to Ahmed, his son was not given the chance for a fair trial.

“I wrote a letter to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) of the navy on August 15, 2015, asking him to provide the opportunity of a defence counsel to my son,” he said. “The navy JAG on Sept 21 replied that the option of defence counsel would be available at the time of trial.”

Ahmed kept waiting for the start of the trial when he found out that his son had been shifted to the Karachi central prison and that the trial had already concluded. Ahmed found out that his son and four of his colleagues namely; Irfanullah, Muhammad Hammad, Arsalan Nazeer and Hashim Naseer, had been awarded death sentence.

Ahmed maintains that his son and others have been made scapegoats in this case and that they were not provided fair trials. He said that he will file an appeal against the judgment before the naval court of appeal.

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Posted by fatimaarshad on May 24 2016. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.