Shafqat Hussain to be hanged on May 6

Karachi
On the basis of new evidence that found death-row convict Shafqat Hussain to be an adult at the time of the announcement of his capital punishment, an anti-terrorism court issued on Friday fresh black warrants for his execution on May 6.
The president had stayed the execution for a month to ascertain his age at the time of when he kidnapped and killed a minor and was handed down the death penalty.
It was claimed that when the judgement for his execution was issued, he was a juvenile and not liable to have faced such a punishment in legal terms.
The FIA found that he was 23 years old at the time the verdict was announced.
Hussain’s counsel had argued that was a juvenile at the time the crime was committed and when the verdict was announced.
He had also argued that a juvenile should not have been tried in an ATC.
The counsel said the charge of kidnapping and murder should have been presented in a regular court under the relevant provisions of Pakistan Penal Code and without the application of Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
However, the petitions challenging the verdict were rejected by the high court and then Supreme Court of Pakistan.
A mercy petition was also dismissed by the president, but the human right organisations raised the question of the execution of an underage person following which the interior ministry intervened and approached the president to stay the execution till the age was ascertained.
Hussain was arrested and sentenced to death in 2004 for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy in an apartment building in Karachi where he was working as a watchman.
In September the same year, Hussain was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court. His murder charge was reduced and replaced with involuntary manslaughter where the murder is termed as to be an intentional killing but as the charges of terrorism were not quashed, the death punishment remained workable and finally a death warrant was issued against him that initiated a controversy on his age issue.