A six-year halt to executions came to an end in December as Pakistan got tough on extremism after Taliban gunmen massacred more than 130 children at a school.
Karachi:
Pakistan is preparing today to hang a convicted killer whose case has attracted international protests because family members say he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.
Shafqat Hussain was sentenced to death for killing a seven-year-old boy in Karachi in 2004 but has had several stays of execution, most recently in June.
The case has prompted grave concern among human rights campaigners as Hussain's lawyers and family claim he was only 15 at the time of the killing, though a government-ordered probe ruled he was an adult.
Hussain's supporters also say he was tortured into confessing. Late on Monday the local government in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir region, where Hussain is from, requested a stay of execution while they look into the controversy surrounding his age.
"On the basis of the recommendations of the Sindh Human Rights Commission, I have decided to conduct an enquiry at the level of the Government of Kashmir into the matter of the juvenility of Mr. Hussain," the state's leader, Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan, said in a letter to Pakistan's President.
"It is in the interest of justice that the execution of Mr Hussain ... be postponed on humanitarian grounds," he wrote.
Khan added that he had also asked the local government in Sindh province, where Hussain is jailed, to look into allegations that torture was used to extract a confession.
In June Hussain won his fourth stay of execution, but a day later the Supreme Court rejected an application to set up a judicial commission to ascertain his age.
A government official in Sindh confirmed that the provincial authorities had also recommended a stay in the execution.
Late on Monday, however, the federal government was yet to announce any postponement.
United Nations rights experts have said his trial "fell short of international standards" and called on Islamabad to reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty.
A six-year halt to executions came to an end in December as Pakistan got tough on extremism after Taliban gunmen massacred more than 130 children at a school. Since then, around 180 people have been hanged.
Shafqat Hussain was sentenced to death for killing a seven-year-old boy in Karachi in 2004 but has had several stays of execution, most recently in June.
The case has prompted grave concern among human rights campaigners as Hussain's lawyers and family claim he was only 15 at the time of the killing, though a government-ordered probe ruled he was an adult.
Hussain's supporters also say he was tortured into confessing. Late on Monday the local government in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir region, where Hussain is from, requested a stay of execution while they look into the controversy surrounding his age.
"On the basis of the recommendations of the Sindh Human Rights Commission, I have decided to conduct an enquiry at the level of the Government of Kashmir into the matter of the juvenility of Mr. Hussain," the state's leader, Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan, said in a letter to Pakistan's President.
"It is in the interest of justice that the execution of Mr Hussain ... be postponed on humanitarian grounds," he wrote.
Khan added that he had also asked the local government in Sindh province, where Hussain is jailed, to look into allegations that torture was used to extract a confession.
In June Hussain won his fourth stay of execution, but a day later the Supreme Court rejected an application to set up a judicial commission to ascertain his age.
A government official in Sindh confirmed that the provincial authorities had also recommended a stay in the execution.
Late on Monday, however, the federal government was yet to announce any postponement.
United Nations rights experts have said his trial "fell short of international standards" and called on Islamabad to reinstate a moratorium on the death penalty.
A six-year halt to executions came to an end in December as Pakistan got tough on extremism after Taliban gunmen massacred more than 130 children at a school. Since then, around 180 people have been hanged.
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