An anti-terrorism court has transferred the trial of a juvenile arrested on charges of killing an Ahmadi man who was undertrial over blasphemy accusations inside a courtroom, to the Peshawar district and sessions judge.
Faisal Khan shot dead US citizen Tahir Ahmad Naseem, who was in jail since 2018 after he was accused of blasphemy, in 2020 in a courtroom in Peshawar. Faisal Khan was stated to be of 17-year-old at the time of the incident.
Dawn reported that an anti-terrorism court judge Dr Aamir Nazir ordered the transfer of the case to the district judge so that the accused could be tried under the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018.
The transfer was ordered in the light of a recent Peshawar High Court (PHC) judgement, stating that a juvenile accused charged with a terrorism-related offence should be tried by a juvenile court, and not by an anti-terrorism court.
Along with the prime accused, a cleric Wasiullah and a junior lawyer Tufail Zia are co-accused in the case.
In his confessional statement, Wasiullah had said that he he had motivated the prime accused to kill Tahir Ahmad Naseem.
The lawyer Tufail Zia is accused of taking a pistol inside the Judicial Complex before handing it over to the alleged killer.
The teen got through three security checkpoints on his way into a courtroom in Peshawar on July 29, pulled out a pistol and fired multiple shots into Naseem, 57, at a bail hearing.
After the killing, thousands rallied in support of Khan. Delegations of well-wishers – lawyers, clerics, local politicians – visited the Khan family home in Peshawar to congratulate the family. He has received messages of support from the Pakistani Taliban, Reuters had reported.
According to the United States Department of State, Naseem had been lured to Pakistan from his home in Illinois by individuals who then used Pakistan’s blasphemy laws to entrap him.
