A prison official says Pakistan has suspended the execution of the only paraplegic inmate on death row.
Ahmad Nadeem, the chief of the prison in eastern city of Faisalabad, says he received the order from the Pakistani presidency, hours before today's scheduled execution.
It was the fourth time that Abdul Basit's life has been spared on humanitarian grounds. Basit, 43, has been on death row since 2009 for a murder conviction. He became paralysed from the waist down after contracting meningitis in 2010.
Nadeem says the government will seek its legal options during the two-month suspension. His mother Nusrat Parveen has asked the government to free her son.
Amnesty International says Pakistan has executed 300 inmates since it lifted a moratorium on the death penalty late last year.
