Relief as Pakistani’s hanging stayed again
Print Edition
Relatives of a Pakistani death row prisoner said yesterday they “felt a wave of life” when his execution was halted to examine claims he was a juvenile when the crime was committed.
The reprieve for Shafqat Hussain, sentenced to hang for killing a 7-year-old boy in Karachi in 2004, came just hours before he was due to face the gallows around dawn at a prison in the city.
It was his fourth stay of execution in five months in a case that has prompted grave concern among international rights campaigners and the United Nations.
Hussain’s lawyers and family claim he was under 18 at the time of the killing, and therefore is not eligible for execution under Pakistani law.
They also claim he was tortured into confessing.
His brother Manzoor Hussain said relatives gathered in Muzaffarabad, the main town of Pakistani Kashmir where the family hails from, to keep a vigil during the night of the expected hanging.
“When we were informed at 3am that he has survived, we felt a wave of life inside us,” he said. “We were not expecting this, we had even found a place for his grave in a local cemetery here in Muzaffarabad.”
Southern Sindh province prisons inspector Nusrat Mangan confirmed yesterday the hanging — first scheduled for January — had been postponed.
The Supreme Court is to examine the questions around Hussain’s age, which his supporters have put at 14 or 15 at the time of the offense.
Hussain’s true age has proved difficult to ascertain — exact birth records are not always kept in Pakistan, particularly for people from poor families like Hussain’s.
A birth certificate for Hussain circulated in the media several months ago, but it appeared to have been issued only in December and Interior Minister Chaudhry Ali Nisar Khan said there was no proof of its authenticity.
Hussain, the youngest of seven children, was working as a watchman in Karachi in 2004 when a seven-year-old boy went missing from the neighbourhood. A few days later the boy's family received calls from Hussain’s mobile demanding a ransom of half a million rupees (US$8,500 at the time), according to legal papers.
Hussain was arrested and admitted kidnapping and killing him, but later withdrew his confession.
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