Pakistan hanged four convicted murderers Thursday, an official said, but stayed the execution of one man whose family said was a minor at the time of his crime.
The hangings were carried out at several prisons in the central province of Punjab, an Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, bringing the national tally to 25 in the past three days.
Pakistan lifted a six-year moratorium on executions in December after Taliban gunmen killed 136 children at an army-run school in the deadliest attack ever in the country.
One convict had his execution scheduled for Thursday postponed hours earlier by the president for 72 hours, to investigate his family’s assertion he was only 14 at the time of the crime.
Shafqat Hussain was set to go to the gallows in the southern city of Karachi before dawn for kidnapping and killing a child in 2004, according to the Interior Ministry.
Global rights groups and Pakistani campaigners have called for Khan’s execution to be halted under the country’s own law, as crimes committed by minors do not carry the death penalty.
The sentence was passed on the basis of prison records that showed Hussain’s age as 23 in 2004.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said this week a test was being carried out to determine whether Hussain was in fact a minor at the time, as indicated by a birth certificate produced by his family.
If so, his death penalty would be commuted to life imprisonment, said Rizwan Khan, an Islamabad-based lawyer.
Geo television reported prison authorities got as far as asking Hussain to change into white clothes and write his will late Wednesday before receiving orders to call off the hanging.
Pakistan has hanged 52 convicts far since the moratorium was lifted, according to Amnesty International, amid protests by rights groups and the European Union.
GNA
