Death row prisoner: Jail officials insist Shafqat wasn’t underage

Officials say Shafqat’s age was 23 when he was brought to the prison in 2004

KARACHI: As questions reverberated in the news media about the age of death-row prisoner Shafqat Hussain at the time of his conviction in 2004, jail officials insisted on Saturday that the inmate was 23 years old when he was incarcerated.

Citing the admissions register of the Karachi Central Jail, which records the age of every incoming inmate, they said Shafqat’s age was 23 when he was brought to the prison in 2004. “We record the age by our findings and by asking the prisoner. According to our register, he was not 14 but 23,” said one official.

Another prison official said there is a ‘huge difference’ between an inmate who is 14 years old and another who is 23 years old. “If he was 14, we would have sent him to the juvenile jail. Why would we keep him in the main jail?”

said the official.  Shafqat’s family and lawyers have disputed the prison record. They claim he was 14 years old when he was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old who went missing from the apartments where the convict worked.

The murder provision was later reduced to involuntary manslaughter and he was sentenced to death for kidnapping. Shafqat’s lawyers claim he was forced into confessing his role in the crime after suffering torture at the hands of the police.

The government has halted his execution for 30 days on demand of the civil society, while his family and lawyers called for reinvestigation of the case to determine his age and his juvenility at the time of the offence.

The family’s view

Shafqat’s elder brother Majeed Hussain denied the jail officials’ claim that he was a minor at the time. “Tests should be conducted to determine his age. They will prove everything. Shafqat was not more than 14 years when he was convicted. At present, he is not more than 25 years old.”

Majeed also claimed that the two pictures purportedly showing a man with a beard and moustache and flashed by the news media were not his brother’s. “This is not Shafqat’s picture. We don’t know who he is”. However he did say that the other picture was indeed of Shafqat. The said picture shows a bulky heavily bearded man sporting a cap. “This has been taken by the people who came for investigation, and is from the day when Shafqat was released from the death cell.”

To prove that he was a minor, Majeed said his family was trying to access old newspapers records showing Shafqat’s picture at the time of his arrest.

The lawyers’ view

The Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) maintains that Shafqat was a minor when he was convicted, and that the decision about his juvenility should be left to the inquiry being conducted by the government.

“The current attempts by some media outlets not only impede the government’s inquiry but negatively influence its outcome. It is highly deplorable and against the law,” says Sarah Belal, a lawyer and executive director of the organisation.

The JPP says that they have submitted the findings of their investigation to the ministry of interior. “The government has been directed by the president to re-examine the case. Media outlets should let the government inquiry take its course.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2015.