Tuesday 22 September 2015

Abdul Basit: Pakistan delays hanging of paraplegic man

The planned hanging of a paraplegic prisoner convicted of murder in Pakistan has been delayed, his lawyer has said.
Abdul Basit could not be hanged in compliance with the jail manual because he is in a wheelchair, a magistrate said when ordering the postponement.

Pakistan's prison guidelines require that a prisoner stand on the gallows.
Rights groups say hanging Basit would constitute cruel and degrading treatment.
Abdul Basit, 43, is paralysed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair after becoming ill in prison.
Pakistan reintroduced the death penalty in December 2014 and has hanged 239 people since.
At the time, the government said it was a measure to combat terrorism after the Taliban massacred more than 150 people, most of them children, in a Peshawar school.

Source: BBC News

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