LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday dismissed main appeal (criminal revision) against sentence of a man who was jailed for seven years for being member of an international racket of child pornographers.

Justice Farooq Haider dismissed the appeal after hearing arguments of the convict’s counsel and the federal government.

The judge last week had suspended the sentence and granted bail to the convict, Saadat Amin, while allowing a civil miscellaneous application seeking suspension of the sentence since the main appeal had not been decided by the court.

The main appeal was filed two months after the conviction in July 2018 while the application for the suspension of the sentence was filed in June 2019.

A source in the LHC said the order announced on the suspension application was not released by the court following a strong reaction by civil society on social media against the release of the child pornographer on bail. And the court decided to rehear the matter by fixing main appeal for hearing.

Court reheard case after verdict on convict’s plea for suspension of sentence was criticised

Another source claimed that the judge had already signed the May 14 order of the bail before the criticism on social media, however, the case file was not consigned to copy branch to frustrate issuance of robkar (release order) of the convict till hearing of the main appeal.

He said Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmad had also taken notice of bail granted to the pornographer and directed the attorney general office to look into the matter.

Later, Additional Attorney General Ishtiaq A. Khan held a meeting with official concerned of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and went through record of the case. A statement issued by the attorney general office said the federal government would oppose the release of the convict.

As the judge resumed hearing of the main appeal on Tuesday, Advocate Rana Nadeem Ahmad appearing on behalf of the convict/appellant argued that his client was wrongly implicated in a false case. He said the trial court handed down the punishment on the basis of insufficient evidence and faulty investigation. He said the appellant had not filmed video of any alleged victim.

On the other side, Additional AG Khan argued that the appellant being convicted for heinous offence was not entitled to any relief. He said the prosecution had successfully proved its case before the trial court and all the evidence was against the convict. He asked the court to dismiss the appeal.

Justice Haider dismissed the criminal revision while the decision on the suspension application stood infructuous.

A judicial magistrate had on April 26, 2018 awarded seven-year imprisonment to Amin of Sargodha under section 22 of Prevention of electronic Crime Act 2016 and also imposed a fine of Rs1.2 million on him.

The cyber crime cell of the FIA had arrested him on a complaint of Norwegian embassy during 2017. The prosecution said the convict was an active member of international racket operating online from Pakistan by engaging children having age of 10/12 years and used to transmit their pornographic pictures/videos outside the country against monetary benefit.

It said more than 650,000 pictures and videos related to child pornography found from the digital media were recovered from the convict’s possession. It said Amin was hand in glove with international child pornographers namely Jan Lindstrom in Sweden, Giovani Betotti in Italy, Max Hunter in US, Andrew Moody and Mukhtar in the UK. The agency produced 11 witnesses against the convict.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2020