KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Monday issued a black warrant for a condemned prisoner for the fifth time as the moratorium imposed on executions was withdrawn after Ramazan.

Judge Saleem Raza Baloch of the ATC-III issued the fresh black warrant and asked the superintendent of the central prison to hang the condemned prisoner till death on Aug 4 at 4:30am as per jail manual.

The court also asked the jail authorities to carry out the execution under the supervision of a judicial magistrate after fulfilling all the legal requirements and return the death warrant with endorsement certifying that the sentence has been executed.

Shafqat Hussain was condemned to death by an antiterrorism court in September 2004 after he was found guilty of kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy in New Town, where he worked as a security guard, in April 2004.

The Sindh High Court upheld the death sentence in kidnapping for ransom while setting aside the conviction in premeditated murder and converted it into unintentional murder. The Supreme Court of Pakistan dismissed his appeal in October 2007 and the apex court turned down the review petition later in December. His mercy petition was dismissed in July 2012.

The condemned prisoner has been dodging death since 2012 as implementation on black warrants, which have repeatedly been issued by the trial court, were stayed because the Pakistan Peoples Party government had placed a moratorium on execution after coming into power in 2008. In the wake of the December 2014 terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government lifted the moratorium.

The condemned prisoner moved the SHC against his possible hanging and stated that the trial court sentenced him to death when he was a juvenile. The high court dismissed his petition for not being maintainable. Thereafter, civil society organisations and the media highlighted the issue contending that he was allegedly 14-year-old when he committed the offence.

Subsequently, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was asked to investigate the matter. A three-member inquiry team of the FIA found that the condemned prisoner was aged around 23 when he committed the crime.

The death row prisoner somehow managed to dodge the death on four earlier occasions even after the lifting of moratorium on executions in 2014.

The first black warrant for Shafqat was issued on Jan 3. The court fixed Jan 14 for his hanging. But the presidency on an interior ministry’s recommendation stayed his hanging.

The second death warrant, which was issued on March 12, fixed March 19 for his execution. But he was given a last minute reprieve when the presidency again deferred his hanging just for 72 hours. On March 24 again the execution was delayed. This time it was postponed for a month to determine whether or not the condemned man was a juvenile when he committed the offence.

After the FIA’s inquiry report, the court issued another death warrant on April 24 and fixed May 6 for his hanging. But the Islamabad High Court through an interim order deferred the hanging on a petition of death row prisoner and later vacated the suspension order.

The fourth death warrant was issued on June 1 and the court directed the jail superintendent to hang the condemned prisoner on June 9. But the hanging was delayed yet again just hours before the scheduled time under mysterious circumstances. The jail authorities then approached the trial court for the issuance of a fresh death warrant for the death row prisoner before Ramazan submitting that the execution fixed for June 9 had been postponed. But the application was not put up before the judge since a moratorium was imposed on executions during the holy month.

According the prosecution, Shafqat Hussain was a watchman of Nadeem Arcade in New Town. He kidnapped Umair, the son of a car dealer, when the latter came down from his second-floor apartment. The convict took the boy to his room and hit him in the head with a club when he attempted to flee. The young boy died instantly. The watchman dumped the body in a nearby drain and demanded a ransom from the victim’s father from different public call offices to deliver the ransom. However, he himself never turned up, the prosecution said, adding that he asked the victim’s father finally to place the money under a wooden box lying inside the compound of Nadeem Arcade. The move led to his arrest as the police said the box belonged to the watchman.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015

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