ISLAMABAD: Shahnawaz Amir, awarded the death sentence in last year’s brutal killing of his wife Sarah Inam, appealed the verdict in the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday, the latest in a case that has brought international attention to violence against women in Pakistan.
Inam, a Pakistani-Canadian employed in Abu Dhabi, was visiting Islamabad when she was killed last year on Sept. 23. Police say her husband used dumbbells to murder her. While Amir was awarded the death sentence on Thursday, his mother Samina Shah, who was present at the family’s suburban Islamabad home when the murder took place, was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Inam married Amir of her own choice on July 18, 2022 in his hometown of Chakwal. The parents of the couple were not present at the event. Inam’s parents say she had only met Amir three times before their marriage, and informed her parents of the relationship after the wedding had already been contracted. They maintain she had been “trapped” into the marriage by Amir who wanted to extort her for money.
Amir pleaded innocent during the trial at a district court, saying he found Inam dead in a bathtub.
“The trial court’s decision to sentence Shahnawaz Amir is contrary to law and facts. The verdict issued by the trial court cannot stand in the eyes of the law,” read the appeal petition filed by Amir, which seeks to nullify the district country’s verdict and acquit the convict. 
“The prosecution had fabricated a story for the indictment and failed to produce concrete evidence.”
“FEMICIDES”
Last Thursday, District and Sessions Judge Nasir Javed Rana announced the death sentence verdict after reserving it for a week following the completion of arguments from both the defense and prosecution sides.
“The prosecution has successfully proven the case against the accused and he is hereby held guilty and awarded the death sentence,” the judge announced in the presence of family members of Amir and Inam who attended the hearing.
“Shahnawaz Amir is directed to pay one million rupees compensation to the heirs of Sarah Inam.”
The judge said the prosecution had failed to establish a case against Samina Shah, the co-accused, and therefore she was being acquitted.
Inam’s parents said they were satisfied with the death sentence verdict for Amir but would consult lawyers over the course of action on the acquittal of his mother.
“I am 100 percent satisfied with the judgment and I am more than happy,” the victim’s mother Kokab Inam told Arab News after the judge read out the ruling.
Her father Inamur Rahim also said he was satisfied with the verdict but wanted to see its implementation.
“It should pass through the [appeal] processes … I hope these appeal processes will not take too long and they should be quickly completed and the actual death sentence should be implemented,” Rahin told Arab news. “If it is not implemented, then it will not convey any message at all.”
On the mother’s acquittal, Rahin said he believed she was involved, “not fully, maybe partially” and should have been punished.
“It cannot happen that in a small house, in the nighttime, how was my daughter killed? She must have cried loudly, even a small sound can be heard from miles during the nighttime,” Rahim asked.
“How she [mother] was sleeping? How could she not hear anything? And why it was not communicated to police or anybody at the proper time? She should have interfered, she could have interfered. I don’t know why she didn’t do it.”
Inam’s case has spotlighted thousands of incidents of violence against women every year in Pakistan, from rape and acid attacks to sexual assault, kidnappings and so-called honor killings.
Her murder was also reminiscent of a similar case in July 2021 in which 27-year-old Noor Mukadam, the daughter of a former diplomat, was beheaded by a childhood friend in Islamabad, drawing an outpouring of anger over femicides in the South Asian nation.