ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is to settle the controversy over the age of the murder convict Shafqat Hussain that had made the government put off his execution for 30 days.

“This is not a political issue. This is a question involving life or death for somebody,” said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan breaking the news to the media here on Tuesday.

A FIA panel would look into “all aspects of the case” to ascertain if the convict was a juvenile in 2004 or not, he said, making it clear that the decision to stay the execution had nothing to do with any external pressure or internal influence.

In reply to a question, he said medical test was not a feasible option to determine the age of Shafqat Hussain as such test produced best results when a person is around 18 or 19. The accuracy of the test declines for people aged 24 or 25, he said.

Jail records show that the Karachi jail doctor put the age of Shafqat Hussain as 25 when he was brought to the jail, and the jail authorities as 23, the minister said, expressing surprise why the age became an issue when it had not been contested all these years.

FIA panel formed to probe Shafqat Hussain’s juvenility

Chaudhry Nisar appeared to reject Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon’s remarks that proof of that claim had been provided to the interior ministry, when he said a certified copy of Hussain’s birth certificate was yet to be received. It is for the “other side to prove juvenility” of Shafqat Hussain, he said.

Rights groups had campaigned for saving Hussain from the gallows on the plea that he was underage at the time he was arrested and tried for murder. The campaign turned into an uproar after his execution was set for March 19.

According to the campaigners, the issue of age was raised before the Supreme Court which rejected the plea observing that it had not been raised earlier during the trial and appeal stage. The review petition was also rejected.

Chaudhry Nisar, however, highlighted the other side of the story that Shafqat Hussain was found guilty of brutally murdering a seven-year-old boy. He said the government was trying to contact the family of the victim, which felt threatened and had moved away after being pressured to withdraw the case.

An anti-terrorism court had sentenced Shafqat Hussain to death on kidnapping-for-ransom murder charge in 2004. Two years later, the High Court retained the punishment. The Supreme Court also upheld the sentence in 2007.

In 2012, former President Asif Ali Zardari rejected his mercy petition.

But like other 8,000 convicts on the death row, Shafqat Hussain had been surviving on the moratorium that President Zardari had put on executions, primarily in consideration of the opposition to executions by Pakistan’s aid donors.

Published in Dawn March 25th , 2015

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