Pakistani Murder Convict’s Hanging Postponed Indefinitely

Bibi, sister of Hussain who was charged as a child with murder and due to be hanged, reacts during a news conference with other family members in Muzaffarabad

Pakistan man who was charged for murder as a child has had his death by hanging sentence postponed, his family said on Thursday. Reuters have more:

Lawyers for Shafqat Hussain say he was just 14 in 2004 when he was burnt with cigarettes and had fingernails removed until he confessed to the killing of a child, a case that has angered rights groups and prompted mercy appeals from his family.

Hussain’s hanging was postponed indefinitely, his brother, Gul Zaman, told Reuters. The Dawn newspaper said it had been postponed for three days. “We were awake all night and praying to God,” Hussain’s mother, Makhani Begum, told Reuters on Thursday. “There was no hope that we would ever see him alive again, but thanks to Allah, who saved my little child from this brutal punishment.”

The human rights group Reprieve said an inquiry would be conducted into Hussain’s age at the time of conviction and the torture he suffered before “confessing” to the crime, the Dawn newspaper reported. Zaman said he was with his brother when he was prepared for execution.

“They dressed him up in white uniform for the execution,” he said. “Then they asked him to write his last will. He wrote: ‘I am innocent. They want to hang me for a crime I have not committed, to save others who have been freed’.”