Pakistan hangs ‘teen’ killer Shafqat Hussain

Shahazullah, centre and Makhni Bibi, second right, the parents of Shafqat Hussain grieve in their home in Muzaffarabad after their son was hanged at a central jail in Karachi. Amiruddin Mughal / EPA

KARACHI // Pakistan executed a convicted child killer Tuesday, brushing aside a storm of protests from rights groups that his confession had been extracted by torture and he was a minor at the time of the crime.

Shafqat Hussain was hanged shortly before dawn at a prison in Karachi for killing a seven-year-old boy in the city in 2004, his brother and a prison official said.

The case prompted grave international concern, drawing protests from the United Nations, as his lawyers and family said he was only 15 at the time of the killing and was tortured into making a false confession.

In Muzaffarabad, the main town of the Pakistani administered part of Kashmir, his family was distraught.

“Why did they hang my innocent brother, only because we were poor?” said his sister Sumaira Bibi, beating her chest and weeping.

His mother Makhni Begum, was glassy-eyed, stunned by the news of the execution after seeing her son receive a stay of execution four times since January.

“My son was innocent, only Allah will prove his innocence in his court,” she said. “We can’t do anything but they [executioners] will face Allah on the day of judgement.”

UN rights experts have said Hussain’s trial “fell short of international standards” and urged Pakistan not to hang him without investigating claims he confessed under torture, as well as his age.

Adding to the concerns, after receiving his body, Hussain’s brothers claimed the hanging had not been carried out properly.

“There is a cut mark on his neck and half of his neck is separated from his body,” Abdul Majeed, his brother, said.

The Kashmir government urged President Mamnoon Hussain late on Monday to postpone the execution to allow further inquiries, but the hanging went ahead as planned.

“Shafqat Hussain was hanged 10 to 12 minutes before dawn prayers today,” a prison official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He was originally to be executed in January but won four stays of execution as his lawyers fought to prove he was under 18 at the time of the offence and could therefore not be executed under Pakistani law.

A government-ordered investigation to determine Hussain’s age, carried out by the Federal Investigation Agency, ruled he was an adult at the time of his conviction — though the results have not been published officially.

The British anti-death penalty campaign group Reprieve said Hussain’s hanging represented “all that is wrong with Pakistan’s race to the gallows”.

Pakistan has hanged around 180 criminals since restarting executions in December after Taliban militants massacred more than 150 people at a school.

* Agence France-Presse