PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday partially accepted the appeal of a convict, Sohail alias Malangay, commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The convict was found guilty of sexually assaulting three minor girls and murdering two of them in the jurisdictions of West, East, and Gulberg police stations in Peshawar Cantt in July 2022.
According to the prosecution, the incidents occurred consecutively over three weeks. While two victims were killed, one girl survived and helped authorities create a sketch of the predator.
The prosecution argued that solid DNA evidence linked the convict to the crimes, leading to his 2025 conviction by a Child Protection Court, which handed down three death sentences and three life terms.
However, the defence counsel, Waqas Chamkani advocate, challenged the reliability of the DNA protocols used during the investigation and cited the convict’s age 21 at the time of the incident as a mitigating factor.After hearing arguments from both sides, the bench commuted the capital punishment to life imprisonment.
