The man’s body has reportedly been handed over to his family for burial
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Islamabad: A Pakistani prison official says authorities have executed a man who was reportedly a juvenile at the time of his arrest in a murder case, according to an international rights group.
The official, Omar Farooq, says Ansar Iqbal was executed on Tuesday at a prison in Sargodha, a city in the eastern Punjab province. He says Iqbal's body has been handed over to his family for burial.
On Monday, Maya Foa, an official with the rights group Reprieve, appealed on Pakistan not to hang Iqbal, saying that he was a juvenile at the time of his arrest.
"All the documentary evidence provided to the courts during his trial or appeal indicates that he was a child at the time of the alleged offence; however, the courts have chosen to believe the estimate of police officers that he was in his 20s," Reprieve said Monday.
Pakistan law forbids the execution of juveniles, but the country’s courts have refused to examine Iqbal’s school records and birth certificate because they said they were submitted too late.
Pakistan has executed 239 convicts since lifting a 2008 moratorium on executions following last December's Taliban attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed 150 people, mostly children.
( Source : AP )
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