The Supreme Court will hear a review petition filed by Zahir Jaffer, who was convicted in the brutal murder of Noor Mukadam in 2021. The hearing has been scheduled for April 8, according to the court’s cause list published online.
Noor Mukadam, aged 27, was found murdered at Zahir Jaffer’s residence in Islamabad in July 2021. Investigators said she had been tortured before being beheaded in the shocking crime that drew nationwide attention.
A trial court had earlier sentenced Zahir Jaffer to death for the murder and also awarded him 25 years of rigorous imprisonment on rape charges. The Islamabad High Court later upheld the death penalty.
However, Zahir Jaffer filed a review petition in the Supreme Court last year, asking the court to reconsider its verdict.
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The 47 page review petition was submitted by Advocate Khawaja Haris under Article 188 of the Constitution, which allows the Supreme Court to review its judgments or orders.
The petition lists the state and Noor Mukadam’s father, Shaukat Ali Muqadam, as respondents in the case.
In the plea, the defence argued that the issue of Zahir Jaffer’s alleged “unsoundness of mind or mental capacity” was raised earlier but was not properly addressed in the court’s decision.
The review petition also questioned the rape charges, claiming that “there is no evidence on the record in proof of this allegation”.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had converted the death sentence for the rape charge into life imprisonment but did not acquit Zahir Jaffer of the offence. He was also acquitted of a 10 year sentence for kidnapping but received a one year sentence for wrongful confinement under Section 342 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The defence further argued that the video recordings used as evidence were not properly proven during the trial and were not shared with the accused.
According to the petition, the Supreme Court’s earlier decision relied heavily on video footage stored in a digital video recorder and clips that prosecutors claimed were transferred to a hard disk.
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In its detailed verdict, the Supreme Court had highlighted the importance of digital evidence. The court ruled that video footage could be accepted as primary evidence under the “silent witness theory”, which allows recorded footage to be used as proof without an eyewitness.
The tragic incident took place on July 20, 2021 in Islamabad’s Sector F-7/4. Noor Mukadam’s murder shocked the country and sparked widespread demands for justice.
Zahir Jaffer was arrested at the scene the same day the crime was reported. In February 2022, a district and sessions court sentenced him to death for murder.
Two members of his household staff, Mohammad Iftikhar and Jan Mohammad, were also convicted and each received 10 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Zahir Jaffer’s parents, businessman Zakir Jaffer and Asmat Adamji, were initially indicted but were later acquitted by the trial court.