“We have noted with deep concern and anguish the unfortunate executions of the Bangladesh National Party leader, Mr. Salauddin Quadir Chowdhury and Mr Ali Ahsan Mojaheed”.
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The charges for which Chowdhury was sentenced included carrying out two anti-Hindu massacres in 1971, the murder of a social worker Natun Chandra Sinha and an Awami League leader Mozaffar Ahmed and his son.
But supporters and relatives of the two leaders said that no petition for presidential clemency had been filed before they were hanged.
Set up in 2010 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, the ICT has prosecuted more than a dozen opposition leaders for war crimes.
Mujahid was accused of leading a notorious group that during the war kidnapped and killed many teachers, journalists and writers who supported the cause for Bangladesh’s independence.
Stephen Rapp, who until August served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador for the war crimes, said it was disturbing that Salahuddin was denied the right to call alibi witnesses, including a former USA ambassador, to provide testimony that he was not present in Bangladesh at the time the alleged crimes were committed.
The Supreme Court affirmed death for the two politicians as their plea for review of the appeal court’s judgement rejected Wednesday.
Islamabad on Sunday branded the tribunal’s trials flawed, and called for reconciliation over the nine-month war which pitted Pakistani forces and allied militias against Bangladeshi freedom fighters.
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.
Condemned war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury will convey his decision on seeking presidential clemency when he meets his lawyers, his wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury said today.
In spite of these doubts, however, the trial is being seen as significant step in Bangladesh’s politics.
The global organization Human Rights Watch asked the authorities to stop the executions, citing “serious fair trial concerns surrounding their convictions”. They had opposed the creation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971. With Sunday’s execution, Bangladesh has hanged four war crimes convicts so far.
Jamaat-e-Islam leader Abdul Quader Molla was the first to walk to the gallows in December 2013 while another leader of the same party, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, was executed in April this year.
Jamaat, banned from contesting the 2014 general election, said the executions were part of a strategy “aimed at eliminating” its leadership.
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The convictions triggered Bangladesh’s deadliest violence since independence, with a few 500 people killed, mainly in clashes between Jamaat-e-Islami activists and police.
