Pak hangs 9 as convict’s mother begs mercy
ISLAMABAD: Nine murder convicts were hanged in Pakistan on Wednesday taking the number of executions in the past two days to 21, and to 48 since an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in December.
The spate of executions come after the moratorium was recently extended to non-terrorism cases.
More hangings are expected on Thursday, including that of Shafqat Hussain, whose sentence has been challenged repeatedly on grounds that he was 14 when awarded the death penalty.
The death sentence cannot be used against a defendant under the age of 18 when the crime was committed.
Hussain’s family showed his birth certificate to the media on Wednesday in a last ditch attempt to stop his execution. Hussain’s mother appealed to president Mamnoon Hussain to commute the death sentence to life in prison.
“I beg for new life for my son,” Makhani Begum, 65, cried.
“It’s just a sham. There was no inquiry conducted at all,” said Shahab Siddiqui from Justice Project Pakistan, the legal aid group representing Hussain.
Pakistan’s last execution of a child offender took place in 2006 when Mutabar Khan was hanged in Peshawar. A trial court in Swabi had sentenced Khan, 16, to death in October 1998 for the murder of five people in April 1996.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent body, estimates that there are over 8,000 people on death row in Pakistan. AFP