The noose tightens: Shafqat’s death warrant issued for the fifth time

Controversy over convict’s age kept disrupting execution schedule.

KARACHI: For the fifth time in nearly eight months, an anti-terrorism court issued black warrants on Monday for condemned prisoner, Shafqat Hussain, who has escaped death twice already, hours before being sent to the gallows.

Hussain was awarded the death sentence in April 2004 for kidnapping and later killing a child. Hussain, according to the prosecution, abducted a seven-year-old son a of a car dealer, from a residential complex in New Town area, where he worked as a watchman, and later killed him after taking the ransom money.

The controversy that Shafqat was a juvenile when he committed the crime led to calls for a retrial and disrupted execution schedules twice.

The fresh black warrant, issued by the ATC-III, has set August 4, as the day to execute Hussain. He will be sent to the gallows before dawn at 4:30am inside the central jail after completion of all legal and medical formalities.

Chances exhausted

Shafqat was among the earliest batch of the condemned prisoners set to be hanged following lifting of the moratorium on capital punishment in December last year.

His hanging was scheduled on January 14, but the court’s order became ineffective after the government decided to re-investigate his case owing to concerns over his age.

He was later scheduled to be hanged on March 19, but was yet again provided a last-minute reprieve after protesters gathered outside the presidency.

A three-member FIA team concluded that Shafqat was 23 years old at the time the court had announced its verdict.

The ATC then issued a black warrant for May 6; however, the Islamabad High Court stayed his hanging, questioning the legality of the committee formed.

On expiration of the 30-day stay, the ATC had issued black warrants for June 9. But he was saved from the gallows at the eleventh hour under the mysterious circumstances that developed after the scheduling of a Supreme Court hearing over the case.

Now it seems that the death warrant has been issued for the final time, as no appellate court has been left where the case could be filed for a review.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2015.