A paraplegic man is currently facing execution by hanging in Pakistan, reported the Washington Post. Abdul Basit, 44, will either be lifted out of his wheelchair to face the sentence or be hanged while in his wheelchair. Basit was convicted of murder in 2009 and developed tuberculosis one year later, according to the Telegraph.
Basit's lawyers from Justice Project Pakistan, an anti-capital punishment group, are currently opposing the execution and pointing to the wording of Pakistani jail rules as support for their argument.
"Our main argument is that, in the jail manual, it states a person has to walk to the gallows and has to stand on the scaffolding," said Namra Gilani, a Justice Project Pakistan case lawyer. "These rules don't apply to Abdul because they have to be followed in each and every step, and that is not possible in this case.
"No provision can be safely made for the accurate measurement of the rope that would hang him and to proceed with an inaccurately-measured length of rope would place him at risk of an appalling death."
Despite the efforts of human rights activists to appeal various Pakistani court rulings in the past six months, efforts have been in vain. Multiple international monitors and activists, including representatives from the European Union, failed in their efforts to stop various controversial executions, reported the Washington Post.
Although the case is the first of its kind in Pakistan, a U.S. state prison in Virginia executed Charles Stamper, a 39-year-old disabled man with severe spinal injuries, via the electric chair in 1993, reported the Daily Mail.
