KARACHI: Condemned prisoner Shafqat Hussain is set to be sent to the gallows in the early hours of Tuesday at the Karachi central prison.

He was condemned to death by an antiterrorism court in September 2004 for killing a seven-year-old boy after kidnapping him for ransom from an apartment in New Town, where he worked as a security guard.

The appeals of the death row prisoner, who hailed from Azad Kashmir, were dismissed by the Sindh High Court and Supreme Court while his review petition was also turned down by the apex court in December 2007. The president had dismissed his mercy petition in July 2012.

On the request of jail authorities, the ATC-III had issued on July 27 a black warrant for a fifth time since the moratorium on hanging was withdrawn in December last year and asked the jail superintendent to hang him till death on Aug 4 at 4.30am.

The condemned prisoner has been dodging death since 2012.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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