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Pakistan executes man who killed child as minor

FILE - In this March 14, 2015, file photo, Makhni Begum holds a photograph of her son Shafqat Hussain in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani jail official says Hussain, convicted of killing a boy in 2004 and spared of execution four times earlier, has been hanged in Karachi prison. (AP Photo/M.D. Mughal, File) FILE - In this March 14, 2015, file photo, Makhni Begum holds a photograph of her son Shafqat Hussain in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani jail official says Hussain, convicted of killing a boy in 2004 and spared of execution four times earlier, has been hanged in Karachi prison. (AP Photo/M.D. Mughal, File)

By Associated Press August 4, 2015 1 min read

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) – A Pakistani prison official says authorities have executed a man convicted of killing a 7-year-old boy in 2004, when he himself was 14 years old.

Official Iqbal Hassan says Shafqat Hussain was hanged shortly before dawn on Tuesday at a Karachi prison. His relatives were allowed to visit him for the last time on Monday evening.

Hussain’s execution had been stayed four times amid the controversy over executing someone who committed a crime as a minor.

Local and international human rights groups have criticized Islamabad over the issue.

Pakistan imposed a moratorium on executions in 2008, but then first partially and subsequently completely lifted the ban in December, after a Taliban attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed 150 people, mostly children.