Shafqat’s execution halted for 30 days

Nine more executed as EU calls upon Pakistan to restore moratorium on death penalty

ISLAMABAD: A last-minute heartrending appeal by the family has been heard. The hanging of Shafqat Hussain, a young man convicted of murder, was halted hours before he was to be executed at dawn on Thursday.

In the early hours of Wednesday, nine more condemned prisoners were executed in prisons across Punjab taking the number of convicts hanged over the past two days to 21, as the European Union condemned the executions and called upon Pakistan to restore a moratorium on the death penalty.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan requested President Mamnoon Hussain through the office of the prime minister to stay Shafqat’s execution for 30 days so that a controversy over his age was resolved.

“We have learnt from multiple sources that the execution has been stayed,” said Shahab Siddiqi, the communication specialist for the Justice Project Pakistan, which has been
campaigning against the hanging. “I personally handed over a second mercy petition to an official of the Presidency at 11:30pm [Wednesday].”

A senior official at the Karachi Central Jail, where Shafqat is incarcerated, confirmed to The Express Tribune that the execution has been delayed. “We are 100% sure that he would not be hanged today,” said the official.

Lawyers for Shafqat say he was just 14 in 2004, when he was burnt with cigarettes and had fingernails removed until he confessed to the killing of a seven-year-old boy in a Karachi neighbourhood.

On Wednesday, his family shared with the media a ‘birth certificate’ which ‘confirms’ that Shafqat was a juvenile when condemned to death by an anti-terrorism court. The death sentence cannot be used against a defendant under the age of 18 when the crime was committed.

“For God’s sake don’t deprive me of Shafqat, he is my last child. He is innocent,” his mother, Makhani Begum, told a news conference in Muzaffarabad, the city Shafqat hails from. Shafqat’s elder brother Manzoor Ahmed, younger sister and Justice Project representative Yasir Sahbaz were also present at the conference.

“Oh, my Allah, save my Shafqat from falling victim to injustice,” Makhni wailed, raising her hands in prayer. His brother begged for a change of heart. “I request them, in the name of Allah, and in the name of humanity, to stop his execution,” he said.

The news conference came a day after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told lawmakers in the National Assembly that Shafqat’s scheduled hanging should not be ‘politicised’. He asked rights groups campaigning against the execution to come up with a proof of Shafqat’s age within 36 hours.

On Wednesday morning, nine condemned murderers were executed in different jails of Punjab. Officials confirmed to The Express Tribune that Shafaqat Ali and Muhammad Saeed were hanged in the Central Jail Faisalabad; Zakir Hussain and Ghulam Muhammad were executed in the District Jail Jhang; Shaukat Ali, Muhammad Shabbir, Talib Hussain and Rabnawaz were sent to the gallows at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail; while Asad Khan was executed the District Jail Attock.

The European Union condemned the mass executions and urged Pakistan to restore a moratorium on the death penalty. “The EU calls on Pakistan to reinstitute the moratorium and to respect fully all its international obligations, in particular the principle of fair trial,” said a statement issued by the EU spokesperson.

The statement said the 28-nation bloc considers death penalty a ‘cruel and inhuman’ punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent against crime and which makes any miscarriage of justice irreversible. “The European Union is opposed to capital punishment in all cases and without exception, and has consistently called for its universal abolition,” the statement added.

“Contrary to the government of Pakistan’s policy that only clearly identified terrorists would be executed, convicts not sentenced on terrorist charges are being executed,” the EU noted.

The EU recalls that Article 6(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Pakistan is a party, specifically prohibits the use of the death sentence for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age. (With additional reporting by our correspondents in Faisalabad, Jhang, Rawalpindi and Attock)

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2015.