A question of age

Execution should not proceed until matter regarding Hussain's age at the time of sentencing is conclusively determined

The age of Shafqat Hussain, a prisoner currently under death sentence, remains to be finally determined despite the outcome of an executive enquiry. The inquiry was set up to determine whether or not he was a juvenile at the time of his sentencing, and it concluded that he was 23 at the time the sentence was handed down. The legal team representing the condemned man claims this is at best debatable as those conducting the executive inquiry have ignored evidence presented by his defenders. On the face of it, the inquiry team has been reasonably thorough. It examined all the relevant documents relating to Hussain’s arrest, which includes pictures taken at the time of his arrest and concluded that he was 23 when he was first taken into custody. This is considerably at variance with the now-invalidated birth certificate which purported to show he was around 14 at the time he was convicted of murdering a child, and nowhere along the contemporary evidential or judicial chain has the matter of his age at the time he committed the offence, been previously raised.

However, where any doubt remains in a matter such as this where a life is at stake, then it is unsafe to carry out an execution. There remains a possibility that Hussain was under 18 at the time of his sentencing and until that possibility is definitively and conclusively determined either way, the execution should not proceed. This case brings to light the often-poor record-keeping that can follow an individual for their entire lives. Records can be ‘adjusted’ — falsified — at almost every stage from birth through school years and on into adulthood. Matters have improved in recent years but many births in rural areas, for instance, still go unregistered. Prisoners are now being executed regularly, many of them having been condemned many years ago. There will be other cases where evidence and verdicts are disputed, and the imperfect and often corrupt judicial system and inefficient police forces render some convictions unsound. Whether this case is one of them remains to be finally determined.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd,  2015.

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