A Time To Kill

By Amir Zia

(A truncated version of this article appeared in the July, 2015 issue of monthly Newsline) 

The ramification of deciding cases on the basis of public perception or direct foreign or local pressure is indeed an ominous trend. State institutions and the government should not yield before such pressures. How Pakistan runs its judicial system is totally our business. The government also needs to give a tough warning to the EU and other foreign players not to blatantly interfere in Pakistan’s internal matters.

Convicted child-killer Shafqat Hussain got another lease of life when his execution, scheduled for June 9, was stayed for the fourth time, barely a few hours before the hanging. On whose orders the jail superintendent deferred the execution initially appeared a mystery as both the President House and the Ministry of Interior denied issuing any such directives. Also, there were no court orders to save Hussain’s life.

“It was Almighty Allah’s will, that’s all I can say,” said a senior jail official with a knowing smile at the Karachi Central Prison. “But eventually he will be hanged. It’s only a matter of time…The case has become a prestige point, both for the superior judiciary and those opposed to Shafqat’s execution.”

Jail authorities maintain that it was the Sindh government, which managed to prevent Shafqat’s hanging as only a day prior to it, a delegation, comprising diplomats from the key EU countries, met Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, and urged him to play his role in saving Shafqat’s life. And the PPP government obliged by advising the jail superintendent to postpone the hanging, using the argument that another hearing of the case was due the following day.

The stay prompted an angry response from the federal government, underlining the fact that the tussle over Shafqat Hussain’s fate is far from over. In fact, this tussle has become a defining one in Pakistan where Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif partially lifted the moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014, following the deadly attack on an army-run public school in Peshawar. The national outrage over the massacre of more than 140 people, mostly children, created an unprecedented consensus on crushing terrorism and awarding the death penalty to those convicted for terrorism. In March 2015, the government lifted the moratorium on the death penalty for all heinous crimes under the constitution. 

The anti-death penalty campaigners were caught off-guard, as a broad national agreement emerged on lifting the controversial moratorium on the death penalty placed by the former PPP government in 2008. The moratorium had created a dichotomy in Pakistan’s legal system whereby the judiciary kept on handing down the death penalty under the constitution, but the executive arm was not implementing those orders.

Ironically, instead of going for a constitutional amendment to abolish the death sentence, the PPP, had chosen a short cut because of the fear of a backlash from powerful and radical Islamic groups, which view any attempts to scrap the death penalty as being against the tenets of Islam. Along with the Islamic groups, many secular nationalist Pakistanis, key-decision-makers in the judiciary, members of civil society and the bureaucracy, also oppose banishing the death penalty.

In the wake of this broad national consensus in favour of the death penalty, a few human rights campaigners went for an indirect approach to campaign against the death penalty by picking up Shafqat Hussain’s case. They came out with an allegation that Shafqat was under-age – barely 14 years old or so – when convicted for the kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old child in 2004. Pakistan’s constitution bars capital punishment for persons under the age of 18 years. These groups also allege that Shafqat’s confession was gleaned through torture.

What followed was a sorry saga of distortion of facts and falsification of documents, including the birth certificate of the convicted killer – all rejected by Pakistan’s superior judiciary. Shafqat’s childhood photo was circulated on social media to win sympathy among the people and cast doubts about the judicial process.

The target appeared simple; sow suspicions about one case and undermine the entire system. But the Justice Project, which came out in Shafqat’s defence, picked the wrong case in an attempt to paint black as white.  

According to the police, it was an open-and-shut case of murder and kidnapping.

Shafqat was 23 or 24 years old when the crime was committed. The photograph taken at the time of Shafqat’s arrest is undeniable proof of this. The body of the victim was found based on information provided by Shafqat, who worked as a security guard at the Karachi apartment building from where the boy was kidnapped.

Shafqat continued to make telephone calls to the victim’s family even after murdering the child, in a bid to collect ransom and was arrested red-handed when he came to collect the money.

From the anti-terrorism court -- authorised to try kidnapping for ransom cases -- to the superior judiciary – all upheld the death verdict handed down to Shafqat. His appeal for clemency was rejected by the president.

All through his trial, the question of Shafqat’s age was never raised. And if some of the so-called rights campaigners are to be believed, then our entire judicial system failed to notice that it had been trying a boy aged barely 14.

The multiple appeals by the lawyers associated with the Justice Project in various courts, including the Islamabad High Court (IHC), failed to win any relief for Shafqat, who had exhausted all the judicial avenues. The IHC on May 21 dismissed the petition calling for the formation of a judicial commission to determine Hussain’s age and termed it unmaintainable. “Nothing has been placed before this court which would indicate any miscarriage of justice or a need for a probe,” IHC Justice Athar Minallah said.

However, the case was picked up by the foreign media which found the false story about the trial of a 14-year old prisoner and his planned execution sellable.

If foreign pressure, along with the local support, somehow manages to save Shafqat from the gallows, it will not just undermine Pakistan’s judicial system, but encourage other pressure groups to opt for similar tactics. These pressure groups can range from various shades of religious extremists to militant groups, which have a far bigger following and popular support base compared to those who are fighting the Shafqat Hussain case mainly on Twitter and Facebook.

The ramification of deciding cases on the basis of public perception or direct foreign or local pressure is indeed an ominous trend. State institutions and the government should not yield before such pressures. How Pakistan runs its judicial system is totally our business. The government also needs to give a tough warning to the EU and other foreign players not to blatantly interfere in Pakistan’s internal matters.

The local rights groups – even those working with the best of intentions – need to do some soul-searching. Unfortunately, they seem more concerned about advocating for the rights of convicted terrorists and criminals rather than standing up for the victims and their families. Of course, they have every right to lobby and campaign against the death penalty, but in their zeal they should not distort facts and forge documents as a handful of them did in Shafqat Hussain’s case.

These groups also need to take into account Pakistan’s priorities: The basic questions to ask are; Have there been more than 60,000 killings by terrorists and extremists (as in Pakistan) over the last one decade in any of those countries which have abolished the death sentence? Do they face similar challenges of crime and lawlessness as that of Pakistan? Is there any parallel between our economies? The answer to these and many other similar questions is a firm “no.” The government needs to hold accountable those people who, perhaps in pursuance of their own agenda, attempted to create confusion about Shafqat Hussain’s case through blatant lies and falsification of documents. Justice must prevail at every cost in line with the constitution of Pakistan.