Pakistan: Death row convict Shafqat Hussain hanged in Karachi

Islamabad, Aug 4: Shafqat Hussain, a death row prisoner in Pakistan was hanged at a jail on Tuesday in port city of Karachi, media reported.

Shafqat who worked as a security guard in an apartment in Karachi, was arrested and sentenced to death in 2004 for the kidnapping and involuntary murder of a seven-year-old boy who lived in the same apartment building.

His hanging was postponed on four previous occasions this year, Dawn online reported.

All courts in Pakistan had turned down his appeals.

The case also garnered a lot of attention on social and mainstream media and became a bone of contention between supporters and opponents of the death penalty

Pakistan lifted the ban on executions in December 2014, which had been in place since 2008, following a Taliban attack on an Army school in Peshawar that killed more than 150 people - mostly children. It was Pakistan's deadliest ever terror attack.

The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty.

OneIndia News