Death-row convict Shafqat Hussain was hanged to death at the Karachi Central Prison at 4:30am on Tuesday, after his hanging was postponed on four previous occasions this year.
Shafqat was arrested and sentenced to death in 2004 for the kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old boy who lived in a Karachi apartment building where the convict worked as a security guard. All courts had turned down his appeals and the Supreme Court threw out a review petition that was the first to raise the matter of Shafqat’s age at the time of arrest, maintaining that this line of defence should have been introduced at the trial court level. Previously, Shafqat’s legal team insisted that his earlier defence attorneys did not plead his case competently, which was why this aspect was overlooked.
The case also garnered a lot of attention on social and mainstream media as rights groups pleaded desperately with the government not to carry out the execution.
Child killer Shafqat Hussain hanged at Karachi Jail
