Man who became paralysed in jail to be executed tomorrow, despite maintaining

A 43-year-old paraplegic man is set to be put to death in Pakistan on Tuesday after the country’s highest court declined to stay his execution, eliciting criticism from human rights groups.

The government’s failure to acknowledge this and commute Basit’s sentence appeared to form part of a worrying trend involving the blanket dismissal of all mercy petitions considered since executions resumed in 2014, he had said before the court.

Pakistan must halt tomorrow’s scheduled hanging of a paraplegic man who developed tubercular (TB) meningitis while on death row, and immediately impose a moratorium on all executions, Amnesty global said. However, in September, the same court dismissed the petition and said because the hanging of a disabled prisoner was not specifically banned by law, the execution could move forward.

“This case has once again drawn widespread attention to the cruelty of the relentless conveyer belt of executions in Pakistan”, said the statement from Amnesty worldwide .

The counsel for Basit had pointed out that Pakistan’s law had provisions for mercy to be granted in cases where prisoners were suffering from severe “ill-health”.

He will become the 240th Pakistani to be executed since Pakistan reintroduced the death penalty in December 2014.

The condemned man was convicted six years ago of murder and was to have been hanged in Lahore last month – but this was postponed.

At the time the moratorium was lifted the legal aid group Justice Project Pakistan said there were more than 8,000 prisoners on death row in the country.

The Pakistani government has executed 236 people this year, making Pakistan responsible for the largest number of reported executions in the world in 2015. The government claimed it was necessary to fight terrorism. Pakistan’s use of the death penalty is inconsistent with worldwide human rights law, according to statements of United Nations human rights experts and various UN bodies because of the fundamental nature of the right to life, the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people, and the absence of proof that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime.