ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court rejected a review petition by Zahir Zakir Jaffer, a Pakistani-American who was convicted of murdering 27-year-old Noor Mukadam years ago, maintaining its earlier decision to uphold his death sentence.
Mukadam, daughter of a former diplomat named Shaukat Mukadam, was brutally murdered by Jaffer at his Islamabad residence in July 2021. Investigations confirmed she was tortured before being beheaded. A trial court sentenced Jaffer to death in 2022, a verdict later upheld by the Islamabad High Court in 2023.
The Supreme Court also upheld Jaffer’s death sentence in May last year. Jaffer had filed a review petition after the verdict, which was turned down today. The only option left for Jaffer now is to seek a presidential pardon under Article 45 of Pakistan’s constitution.
As per local media reports, a three-member bench comprising Justices Hashim Khan Kakar, Salahuddin Pahnwar and Ishtiaq Ibrahim heard Zahir’s review plea on Thursday. Advocate Khawaja Haris appeared as Jaffer’s counsel, while advocate Shah Khawar was present from the respondents’
side.
“Thanks to Allah, a legal and judicial process has been completed today,” Shaukat Mukadam told reporters outside the Supreme Court.
He added that since the trial court, high court and Supreme Court had all upheld the death sentence earlier, the defendant could not reveal “anything new” in his review plea.
Mukadam urged people who suffer under similar circumstances to not give up and keep pursuing legal action as he did.
He urged Pakistani authorities to ensure the implementation of Jaffer’s death sentence.
“This should be implemented and people like him, who kidnap innocent women, keep them hostage and kill them, they must be punished,” he added.
Mukadam and Jaffer, son of a wealthy industrialist, were widely believed to have been in a relationship which they had broken off a few months before her murder.
Her shocking murder, involving members of the privileged elite of the Pakistani society, triggered an explosive reaction from women’s rights activists reckoning with pervasive violence against women in Pakistan.
It also mounted pressure for a swift conclusion of the trial in a country known to have a sluggish justice system and where cases typically drag on for years.
