PESHAWAR, Feb 4: The family members of a death-row convict have requested the President and Chief Justice of Pakistan to reconsider his case as the convict was a juvenile at the time of the crime and his age had been not properly recorded by the trial court. The offender, Jawed Khan, is in Faisalabad Central Prison for nine years.

He belonged to Shrengal Tehsil of Upper Dir district and was convicted along with two other persons by an anti-terrorism court in Faisalabad on Feb 20, 1998.

The three were charged in a case registered at the police station of Peoples Colony in Faisalabad on July 29, 1996, for murdering a shopkeeper.

Accused Jawed Khan and Waheed Iqbal were awarded death sentence.

Both were to be hanged on Jan 9. Waheed was executed, while Jawed was spared as his application was pending before the high court.

His mercy petition was rejected by the president and appeal against conviction was first dismissed by the Lahore High Court on March 20, 2001, and then by the Supreme Court on Nov 8, 2001.

According to the convict’s brother Badshah Raheem, his counsel had not raised the question of his age before the trial court and the appellate courts. A few years ago he had filed an application before the Faisalabad district and sessions judge raising the issue of his age, but that too was rejected.

He has now filed an appeal before the Lahore High Court and it was expected that his appeal would be heard next week. At the time of his trial the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 was not promulgated under which death sentence could not be awarded to a juvenile offender.

According to the copies of school-leaving and birth certificates produced by his father Akhter Jan he was born on April 3, 1982, and at the time of crime was 15 years old.

According to the applicant, on Dec 13, 2001, President of Pakistan issued a notification wherein death sentence of all juvenile offenders was commuted to life imprisonment.

He added that as his age was not recorded properly by the trial court, therefore the benefit of notification could not be extended to him.

The session judge had dismissed his application on March 11, 2004, observing that the applicant had produced photo copies of school leaving and birth certificates which appeared fictitious.

Moreover, the court ruled that the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance was promulgated in 2000, but the applicant had not raised the issue before the high court and the Supreme Court which dismissed his appeals in 2001.

The brother of convict stated that as Shrengal was a backward and far-flung area therefore the practice of obtaining birth certificate was not prevalent. As such they had to get these documents after the conviction of Jawed and due to the same reason the court believed that those were fictitious.

Regional coordinator, Jehanzeb Khan of the Society for Protection of Rights of Child (Sparc), told Dawn that confusion persisted on the age of a number of offenders on death row across the country.

He said that it would be wise on the part of government to reconsider cases of all such offenders under the 2000 ordinance.