Pakistan's top court upholds death penalty for man who beheaded girlfriend
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has upheld the death penalty of an American citizen for beheading his girlfriend after she refused to marry him.
Zahir Jaffer, the scion of one of the South Asian country's richest families, was convicted of murdering Noor Mukaddam at his home in Islamabad on 20 July 2021.
A murder investigation revealed that Mukaddam had been held captive, tortured and raped before being beheaded with a 'sharp-edged weapon'.
Mukaddam, the daughter of Shaukat Mukaddam, Pakistan 's former ambassador to South Korea and Kazakhstan, was 27 when she was killed. She had made repeated attempts to escape the night of her death, only to be thwarted by the house staff.
Jaffer was given the death penalty in 2022 while a guard and a gardener at his house were each sentenced to 10 years in prison for assisting in the murder.
A three-member Supreme Court bench led by Justice Hashim Kakar on Tuesday upheld the death sentence given to Jaffer.
Judge Kakar observed that "a daughter was mercilessly murdered", according to Dawn. The court, however, commuted Jaffer's death penalty for rape to life imprisonment.
In their previous appeals, Jaffer's lawyers had contended that no medical board was formed to assess his mental state.
The high-profile case had sparked outrage over the lack of convictions for violence against women in Pakistan despite high incidence.
Violence against women in Pakistan has been described as 'endemic'. According to AGHS Legal Aid Cell, less than 3 per cent of perpetrators are convicted.
'This is a victory for all the women of Pakistan. It shows that our justice system can deliver justice and should give women more confidence in the legal process,' Shafaq Zaidi, a childhood friend of Mukadam, was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
'This was our last resort, and it is hard to put into words what this outcome means to us.'
Zainab Shahid, a lawyer, said Jaffar's death sentence brought a sense of justice and closure. 'It marks a departure from high-profile cases of violent crime in the past where perpetrators were acquitted by the highest appellate forum due to errors or failures by law enforcement agencies and state prosecutors in the investigative, evidentiary and trial stages of the case,' she told Dawn.
'This verdict is a rare victory for the women of Pakistan and the protection of their lives against gender-based violence.'
A group of Mukkadam's friends who run the page "Justice for Noor" on X said the verdict was a reminder that "women's lives matter and their voices will be heard".
"This is not just for Noor,' they said, 'it's for all women of Pakistan.'
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