Guidelines state that a prisoner must be able to support their own weight on the scaffold - so officials hope to get

Pakistan told the prisoner on July 29 that his execution was now

Pakistan is planning to execute a paraplegic man by hanging him while he remains seated in his wheelchair - the first case of its kind in the country.

Abdul Basit, 43, was convicted of murder in 2009 but a bout of tuberculosis while detained in Faisalabad Prison the following year which left him paralysed from the waist down.

Following Pakistan's decision to lift its moratorium on executions in the wake of the Peshawar massacre last December, Basit has moved to the front of the queue to be killed - sparking furious debate over the legal, ethical and even practical implications of his execution.

Condemned: Abdul Basit, 43, was convicted of murder in 2009 but a bout of tuberculosis while detained in Faisalabad Prison the following left him paralysed from the waist down

Having been issued with a 'Black Warrant' on July 29 confirming his imminent execution, Basit's lawyers and human rights campaigners have battled for him to avoid facing the scaffold.

A final appeal hearing is set for next Tuesday and if that fails Basit is expected to be hanged soon afterwards, leaving prison officials to decide on how exactly to carry the execution out.

One argument being made by Basit's lawyers relates to Faisalabad Prison's own regulations, which state that a prisoner must be able to 'stand' on the scaffold, according to The Telegraph.

The newspaper claims to have seen an extract from the jail's handbook, which reads: 'The condemned prisoner shall mount the scaffold and shall be placed directly under the beam to which the rope is attached, the warders still holding him by the arms.'

As Basit cannot support his own body weight, he obviously would not be able to 'mount' the scaffold or 'stand' upon it, leaving officials to claim that the only way to get around the regulation would be to hang the condemned man to death while he remains seated in his wheelchair.

Basit was left paralysed from the waist down after developing tuberculosis in prison. Officials at Faisalabad Hospital described him as 'permanently disabled', adding that there is 'almost no chance of any recovery'

While prison officials busy themselves with working out exactly how long the execution hope would need to be to prevent Basit suffering unnecessarily due to the added weight of his wheelchair, campaigners argue that the risks involved mean the execution should simply be called off.

Speaking last month, Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal action charity, Reprieve, said: 'In the name of all that is decent, it is time for the Pakistan president to call a halt to this grisly experiment with the gallows.'

'Meanwhile, the many honourable judges in Pakistan must follow Judge Ahmad’s example in enforcing the rule of law, starting with Abdul Basit,' he added in an article published in the Guardian.

Although Basit's case is the first of its kind in Pakistan, it isn't without precedent in other countries.

In 1993 a prison in the U.S. state of Virginia executed 39-year-old Charles Stamper who had been left 'extremely disabled' due to severe spinal injuries sustained in a prison fight.