Pak youth's execution postponed for 30 days after row over age

The execution of a Pakistani man, apparently condemned to death as a teenager, has been stayed for 30 days as the government decided to set up a committee to determine his true age at the time of conviction in 2004.
On the directives issued by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, jail authorities here today notified an anti-terrorism court that the death row prisoner Shafqat Hussain's execution has been halted for 30 days.
Hussain's case has attracted international attention as his lawyers and family claim he was only 14 at the time of the crime and that his confession was extracted through torture.

Khan said a committee would be set up to try to determine Hussain's true age.
"We have not received any proof from anybody about his age, all the fuss is being made in the media," Khan told reporters.
"We have to ensure justice not only for Shafqat but for the boy who was brutally killed and his body dumped in a Karachi river," he said.

Hussain was convicted by an anti-terrorism court for kidnapping and killing a 7-year-old boy in 2004 in an apartment building of Karachi where he worked as a security guard.
He was just hours away from the gallows when an initial delay was ordered last week.

Hussain's execution was postponed for 72 hours just a few hours before his hanging was scheduled to take place.
Rights bodies allege that Hussain was a minor at the time of crime and that he was tortured to confess the killing, while the jail record showed him as 23 years old.
His family had urged the President to postpone the hanging who delayed the execution for 72 hours to let the authorities investigate the allegations.
Under Pakistani laws, anyone below 18 years can be given a maximum of life imprisonment. There are more than 8,000 prisoners in the country on death row.