Pakistan has executed a convict for a murder that rights groups and his family said he committed as a minor.
Officials said Ansar Iqbal was hanged before dawn on September 29 at a prison in the city of Sargodha, in Punjab Province.
Iqbal was sentenced to death in 1996, although his defense claimed he was just 15 when he committed the crime.
Under Pakistani law, anyone under 18 at the time of the crime cannot face the death penalty.
Britain-based rights group Reprieve, who says a birth certificate and school documents proving Iqbal’s age were dismissed by the court, issued a last-minute appeal to President Mamnoon Hussain for a pardon.
Some 240 the number of convicts executed by Pakistan since authorities lifted last December a 2008 moratorium on carrying out death sentences.
