Islamabad: Despite international pressure, Pakistan on Tuesday hanged Shafqat Hussain, a convicted killer, who got reprieve for his execution four times.
Shafqat Hussain was hanged in Karachi’s Central Jail. He was sentenced to death for killing a seven-year-old boy in Karachi in 2004 but got several stays on execution, most recently in June. In 2004, an Anti-Terrorism Court awarded him death penalty.
Hussain’s lawyers and family claim he was only 15 at the time of the killing, though a probe ruled he was an adult.
His case drew international attention as his lawyers and family claim he was only 15 at the time of the killing and was tortured into confessing.
United Nations rights experts have said his trial “fell short of international standards” and urged Pakistan to investigate claims he confessed under torture, as well as his age.
The government of PoK, Hussain’s home region, urged President Mamnoon Hussain late on Monday to postpone the execution to allow further inquiries, but the hanging went ahead as planned.
The European Union, which opposes capital punishment in all cases, has been particularly vocal.
Last week the EU mission in Islamabad said it was “deeply concerned” by the resumption of hangings and warned that a prized trade status granted to Pakistan could be threatened unless it stuck to international conventions on fair trials, child rights and preventing torture.
Pakistan has hanged around 180 convicts since restarting executions in December after Taliban militants massacred more than 150 people at a school, most of them children.
A moratorium on the death penalty had been in force since 2008.
