ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Pakistani jail authorities postponed executing a prisoner who is in a wheelchair an hour before he was due to be hanged on Tuesday, because prison rules did not make it clear how they should proceed, his lawyers said.

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 paralyzed from the waist down since contracting meningitis in prison in 2010 and uses a wheelchair. Basit has been on death row since 2009, convicted of murdering a man in a financial dispute in Punjab province.

According to prison official Mohammad Safdar, a magistrate made the decision to postpone the death sentence after talking to Basit early Tuesday. The hanging was initially scheduled for just before dawn.

According to Justice Project Pakistan, prison guidelines require that a prisoner stands on the gallows and the rope’s length is determined by his standing height.

Basit’s family members were waiting outside the high-security prison in the city of Faisalabad in eastern Punjab province for the sentence to be carried out so they could take the body for burial.

His sister, Shugufta Sultana, said they were “terrified and nervous.”