Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunals had found the two guilty of collaborating with Pakistani forces and committing crimes, including mass killings.
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Chowdhury, a six-time member of parliament and senior adviser to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, was sentenced for his role in a genocide and other killings.
Family members of both men met them hours before the death sentences were carried out.
Two unknown attackers opened shots at the vehicle and wounded reporter Rajib Sen, according to Naimul Hasan, additional police superintendent of Chittagong. The State Department said Friday that executions should not take place until it’s clear the trial process meets worldwide standards.
“Both of them have been hanged concurrently on two separate platforms”, the police official stated.
On Wednesday, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentences against Chowdhury and Mujahid, who were convicted in 2013 on charges including genocide, rape and torture during the war.
Dhaka – Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, politicians executed over war crimes, were buried Sunday at their respective villages in Chittagong and Faridpur districts.
After news of the execution broke, supporters of prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League took to the streets to celebrate and unfurled national flags near the prison. He is the second most senior member of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
“We had to endure years of pains and shame as these war criminals would taunt us”. They declined to seek clemency from the president. “But now justice has finally been delivered”, she told AFP. His daughter, Farzeen Quader Chowdhury, told VOA, “My father did not file or sign any mercy petition”.
Muslim-majority Bangladesh, until 1971 East Pakistan, has seen a rise in Islamist violence in recent months, with two foreigners and four secular writers and a publisher killed this year.
Human Rights Watch, which is based in NY, criticized the trials as biased toward the prosecution, noting the defense was prevented from calling important witnesses to testify.
He was accused of responsibility for the killings of a number of pro-independence Bangladeshi leaders and intellectuals. Instead, Hasina has blamed the attacks on the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, accusing them of trying to destabilize the country and halt the war crimes trials.
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However, independent researchers say the overall death toll was much lower.
