KARACHI, Feb 16: An anti-terrorism court on Monday sentenced a man to five years in prison in an extortion case.

The court found Shahid Raheem guilty of making threatening phone calls to complainant Mohammad Adeel Sharif in March 2007, forcing the latter to pay money to him.

Judge Anand Ram Hotwani of the ATC-III, who conducted the trial, pronounced his verdict after recording the final arguments from both sides.

He also imposed a fine of Rs20,000 and in case of default the convict would have to undergo an additional six-month imprisonment.

“The prosecution had examined the complainant, Mohammad Adeel Sharif, and he deposed on oath that his mother had received a call on their residential number and thereafter on his cellphone asking him to pay bhatta (extortion) of Rs200,000 and threatened to abduct or killed him if the demand was not met. Though the complainant was cross-examined at length but the defence counsel could not get any such reply that may dent the prosecution evidence while father of complainant also supported the prosecution case in his testimony. The evidence of both the witnesses proved the demand of extortion from complainant party as the evidence of other prosecution witnesses also corroborated this,” the judge wrote in his verdict.

The verdict says: “According to the accused he was arrested from his house, however he failed to produce any supporting evidence in order to prove his plea and did not examine any of his neighbour or other witness to oppose the prosecution view that he was arrested red-handed from the spot. The accused had admitted that he has no enmity with any prosecution witness and said he was victim of circumstances, but he also remained unsuccessful to explain such circumstances”.

The judge concluded that after considering the material evidence that came on record he was of the considered view that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The convict was produced in court in custody.

The judge gave him the benefit of Section 382-B (period of detention to be considered while awarding sentence of imprisonment) of the Criminal Procedure Code and remanded him back to the prison along with the conviction warrant to serve the reminder of his term.

Two co-accused, Mazhar and Irfan Khan, had been declared absconders in the case.

According to the prosecution, the accused had made a number of calls to the complainant on March 13 and 14, 2007 and demanded to pay Rs200,000 and threatened to kill or kidnap him in case of non-compliance. It said that the accused had again called him on March 25, 2007 and asked to deliver the amount at a specified location. The matter was reported to police and the accused, Shahid Raheem, was apprehended when he came to collect the extortion amount. However his two companions had managed to escape, it added.

In his final arguments, Special Public Prosecutor Mubashir Mirza submitted that the prosecution provided sufficient evidence against the accused to prove his involvement in the case and prayed to the court to convict him.

The defence counsel submitted that there was no evidence against the accused and prayed to the court to acquit his client.

A case (FIR159/2007) was registered under Section 386/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7(H) of the Anti-terrorism Act, 1997, at Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station.