IHC lifts stay order against Shafqat’s execution

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday dismissed a petition seeking a judicial inquiry into death row convict Shafqat Hussain’s age and lifted a stay order against his execution.

Shafqat was sentenced in 2004 for the kidnapping and involuntary murder of a seven-year-old boy who lived in a Karachi apartment building where he worked as a security guard.

Confusion over Shafqat’s date of birth raised questions of whether he was a juvenile or of lawful age in 2004 when he was handed down the death sentence.

Last month, an anti-terrorism court issued black warrants for the prisoner's execution on May 6 after an investigation by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) dismissed claims that he was a minor at the time of arrest.

The FIA investigation confirmed that even in the jail records, Shafqat Hussain’s age was not 14 years at the time he was arrested, nor was he under the age of 18.

But implementation on Shafqat's death sentence was stayed until a decision over his plea for a judicial commission to ascertain his age.

Now the Islamabad High Court has dismissed Shafqat's plea for a judicial inquiry into his age, and has lifted the stay order, paving way for the execution of the death row convict.

Pakistan lifted a moratorium on capital punishment in December following a deadly attack by Taliban militants on Peshawar’s Army Public School which killed over 150 people, 134 of them children.

The moratorium, in force since 2008, was initially lifted only in terrorism cases, but in March the government extended it to all capital crimes.