Early on Tuesday morning, Pakistan executed Shafqat Hussain despite allegations that he may have been only 14 at the time of his offense, and amid serious concerns that the basis of his conviction was a confession extracted by torture. His execution defies two international human rights principles that are universally recognized: the exclusion of children from capital punishment and the absolute prohibition on torture.<\/p>\n
Shafqat\u2019s execution was the country\u2019s 193rd since last December, when Pakistan lifted a 6-year moratorium on civilian executions. Since then, Pakistan has carried out executions at the staggering rate of roughly a person a day, outstripping many of the world\u2019s most active and controversial executioners, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United States. Only Iran and China are now known to execute more people than Pakistan.<\/p>\n
The twists and turns taken by Shafqat\u2019s case show a criminal justice system that is failing, amid this onslaught of executions, to implement fundamental human rights or to respect Pakistan\u2019s international commitments in this regard.<\/p>\n
Shafqat was originally scheduled to be executed in January 2015, but his execution was stayed after his lawyers at the Justice Project Pakistan challenged his death sentence on the grounds that he was a juvenile at the time of the offense. The Ministry of the Interior promised to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his arrest, citing the government\u2019s concern for human rights. It took two more execution warrants and two more last-minute stays, however, before an investigation materialized.<\/p>\n
The investigation, conducted by Pakistan\u2019s federal police, the Federal Investigation Agency, was so unreliable that it was later called \u201cprima facie illegal\u201d by the Islamabad High Court and deemed \u201cinadmissible\u2019 by the Sindh Human Rights Commission. The organization Reprieve notes that \u201cit ran the full gamut of outrageous misconduct from witness intimidation and evidence tampering to leaking case information to journalists and releasing the results of the inquiry the day before Shafqat\u2019s lawyers were scheduled to give evidence on their client\u2019s behalf.\u201d No other investigations were launched, however, and Shafqat was executed without a court ever examining evidence that he was a minor at the time of the crime and that his \u201cconfession\u201d was extracted through torture.<\/p>\n