Pakistan defies rights protests to hang 'teen' convict
Pakistan executed a convicted child killer Tuesday, brushing aside a storm of protests from rights groups that his confession had been extracted by torture and he was a minor at the time of the crime.
Shafqat Hussain was hanged shortly before dawn at a jail in Karachi for killing a seven-year-old boy in the city in 2004, his brother and a prison official said.
The case prompted grave international concern, drawing protests from the United Nations, as his lawyers and family said he was only 15 at the time of the killing and was tortured into making a false confession.
In Muzaffarabad, the main town of the Pakistani administered part of Kashmir, his family was distraught.
"Why did they hang my innocent brother, only because we were poor?" said his sister Sumaira Bibi, beating her chest and weeping.
His mother Makhni Begum, looked glassy-eyed, stunned by the news of the execution after seeing her son reprieved from the gallows four times since January.
"My son was innocent, only Allah will prove his innocence in his court," she said. "We can't do anything but they (executioners) will face Allah on the day of judgement."
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