Pakistan Executes Shafqat Hussain Despite World-Wide Outcry

Despite a global outcry, a man believed to have been sentenced as a juvenile has been executed this morning, Pakistan officials have confirmed, in what has been branded by activists as a "deeply sad day" for the country.

Shafqat Hussain — who rights activists believe was just 14 when he was condemned to death for an alleged murder — was convicted of killing a seven-year-old boy in 2004.

Hussain's execution had been stayed four times amid the controversy over executing someone who committed a crime as a minor. After his last appeal failed, Hussain remained on death row for another month as Ramadan had begun, while Pakistan halted executions during the holy fasting month.

Today, authorities confirmed Hussain was hanged shortly before dawn at a Karachi prison after relatives visited him for the last time on Monday night.

Visiting him a day before the execution, Hussain's brother Manzore told Reuters: "There are cigarette burns on his shoulder. They also burnt his ankles with a heated rod. Those scars are still there."

Hussain was first arrested in Karachi more than a decade ago on suspicion of abducting and murdering a seven-year-old named Umair, whose body was later discovered in a plastic bag in a local stream. After an initial confession, Hussain later withdrew his statement, saying it had been produced under police pressure following days of torture, which included suspension, electrocution, beatings, and sleep deprivation.

The human rights NGO Reprieve said Hussain told them he would have sworn "that a deer was an elephant" after being subjected to such extreme torture. VICE News obtained a copy of Hussain's birth certificate.

In 2004, an anti-terror court gave Hussain the death penalty, but the reality of the sentence became much more pressing when Pakistan's moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in the wake of December's school massacre in Peshawar — in which 145 people, including 132 children, were brutally murdered. Since then, nearly 135 prisoners are estimated to have been executed by the state, according to Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

In March, VICE News visited Hussain's family in a rural area near Muzaffarabad, northern Pakistan. In an emotional series of interviews members of his family vehemently protested his innocence. His brother, Manzore Hussain, said that he had only managed to visit Hussain in jail once, in 2010.

Related: Family of Pakistani Prisoner Convicted at 14 Plead Against Execution as Final Appeal Fails

"I asked him why he had committed such a horrible crime, but he refused to discuss it, only telling me that he did not do anything wrong," Manzore told VICE News. "Then I asked him why he confessed, he told me that it was due to 'brutal police torture.'"

"When Shafqat talked about the police torture, he suddenly pissed his pants," he added.

"We are poor, so my brother is going to hang," Manzore said. "But if my brother belonged to an influential family, he wouldn't be hanged. Now I understand why people become terrorists, there's only one reason and it's a lack of justice."

Makhni Begum, Hussain's mother, said she has only been able to visit her imprisoned son once — in 2005.

"Why is [the] government in a hurry to hang an innocent person?" she asked. "I plead to the 17 judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Your duty is to satisfy justice requirements. Why are you people blind, why? My son had to bear a lot of injustice, torture in his life, now give him justice."

Related: Pakistan's Death Row Prisoners Face Broad 'Terrorism' Charges, Harrowing Conditions, and a Crumbling Justice System

Human rights groups say Pakistan has about 8,000 people on death row. They've criticized the government for restarting executions, saying police often use torture to elicit confessions — including Hussain's. Authorities have denied the allegation.

David Griffiths, Amnesty International's South Asia Research Director, said in a statement: "The government has shown a callous indifference not just to human life, but also to international law and standards.

"It has even ignored recommendations by one of its own bodies, the Sindh Human Rights Commission, to request the Supreme Court to consider the evidence relating to his juvenility and 'confession' extracted through torture.

"It is too late to save Shafqat Hussain's life, but there are still thousands of others on death row in Pakistan who are at risk. The government has taken at least 200 lives already over the past eight months — this must end immediately.

"Authorities must impose a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to its eventual repeal," Griffiths added.