KARACHI, Pakistan » A Pakistani prison official says authorities have executed a man convicted of killing a 7-year-old boy in 2004, when he himself was 14 years old.

Official Iqbal Hassan says Shafqat Hussain was hanged shortly before dawn on Tuesday at a Karachi prison. His relatives were allowed to visit him for the last time on Monday evening.

Hussain’s execution had been stayed four times amid the controversy over executing someone who committed a crime as a minor.

Local and international human rights groups have criticized Islamabad over the issue.

Pakistan imposed a moratorium on executions in 2008, but then first partially and subsequently completely lifted the ban in December, after a Taliban attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed 150 people, mostly children.