Post by CCADP on Jun 2, 2005 11:18:56 GMT -5
2 June 2005
UA 149/05 Death penalty
PAKISTAN: Mutabar Khan (m), aged about 25
Mutabar Khan is being held in a death cell in Haripur
prison, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan, after being
sentenced to death for murder in 1998. He was reportedly
16 years old at the time of the crime, but is not able to
prove his age. Pakistan is bound by national and
international law forbidding the execution of those who
were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.
Mutabar Khan was arrested in 1996 and detained in
Peshawar Central Jail. He claims that he was held in the
juvenile section of the jail as he was 16 at that time.
Though his age was not recorded by the authorities, this
suggests that he was indeed a juvenile when he was
arrested. However, he is unable to prove his age, and
successive appeals against his death sentence on the
grounds that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime have
failed. His appeals in the Peshawar High Court and the
Supreme Court were dismissed in 2000 and 2001
respectively. In 2003, Mutabar Khan's mother petitioned
the Peshawar High Court to overturn the sentence because
of his age, but the petition was dismissed. She then filed a
further petition with Pakistan's Supreme Court, asking for
his age to be determined through medical tests on his
bones. This appeal was dismissed in August 2003. Shortly
afterwards, Mutabar Khan's lawyer petitioned the President
to show mercy to Mutabar Khan and commute his sentence.
The President has not yet made a decision on Mutabar
Khan's case.
As Mutabar Khan was reportedly aged 16 when he was
arrested in 1996, he should have benefited from the
Presidential Commutation Order of 2001, which overturned
the death sentences of all juveniles then on death row.
However, this commutation did not apply to Mutabar Khan
because of the dispute over his age.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all
cases. The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of
violence, and not a solution to it. It has not been shown to
have any more deterrent effect than other punishments and
carries the risk of irrevocable error. The death penalty is
seen as the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment and a violation of the right to life, as proclaimed
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
international human rights instruments.
Pakistan is a state party to the UN Convention of the Rights
of the Child (CRC), and has created the Juvenile Justice
System Ordinance (JJSO). Both the CRC and the JJSO
forbid the death penalty for anyone below 18 years of age
at the time of the alleged offence.
Many juveniles under sentence of death have faced great
difficulty and long delays when seeking to commute their
sentence under the terms of the Presidential Commutation
Order. In many cases, the authorities have no record of the
age of the accused as prior to the implementation of the
JJSO in 2000, age was not taken into account when
deciding leniency. It is not easy for the accused children
themselves, their relatives or their legal representatives to
prove their age, as documents such as school leaving
certificates and birth certificates have often been dismissed
as evidence due to the ease with which they can be forged.
Even since the introduction of the JJSO, many judges have
failed to address the issue of age of the accused before
them and generally accept the age recorded by police, even
if the child appears to be younger than the recorded age.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to
arrive as quickly as possible:
- expressing concern that Mutabar Khan is under sentence
of death, despite reportedly being 16 years old at the time
of his arrest in 1996;
- noting that he was apparently initially held in the juvenile
section of Peshawar Central Jail, which supports his claim
that he was a juvenile when he was first detained;
- in view of the doubts over his age, calling for the death
sentence passed on Mutabar Khan to be commuted
immediately;
- urging the President to promptly and completely
implement the Presidential Commutation Order of
December 2001, commuting the death sentence of all those
who were under 18 at the time their alleged crime was
committed, in accordance with Pakistan's commitments
under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and the
Juvenile Justice System Ordinance;
- urging the President to show leniency in those cases
where juveniles have been unable to adequately prove that
they were juveniles at the time of the alleged offence on
account of an absence of official documentation or of
delays in the criminal justice system to ascertain their age.
APPEALS TO:
President Pervez Musharraf
Pakistan Secretariat
Islamabad
Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 51 9221422
E-mail: CE@pak.gov.pk
Salutation: Dear President
COPIES TO:
Ambassador Jehangir Karamat
Embassy of Pakistan
2315 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20008
Fax: 1 202 686 1544
Please send appeals immediately. Check with the
Colorado office between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm,
Mountain Time, weekdays only, if sending appeals after
July 14, 2005.
Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that
promotes and defends human rights.
This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including
contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank
you for your help with this appeal.
Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
PO Box 1270
Nederland CO 80466-1270
Email: uan@aiusa.org
www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 303 258 1170
Fax: 303 258 7881
----------------------------------
END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL