Last-minute reprieve for death row paraplegic

Pakistan has postponed the execution of the country’s first known paraplegic on death-row, about an hour before he was to be hanged.

The man’s family welcomed the development with relief and urged authorities to spare his life on medical grounds.

The day before, Pakistan’s Supreme Court refused to halt the execution of 43-year-old Abdul Basit, who has been paralysed from the waist down since contracting meningitis in prison in 2010 and uses a wheelchair.