Jahangir Kabir, a prison official, confirmed to an Anadolu Agency reporter that Nizami was hanged at the Dhaka Central Jail at 12.10 a.m. local time Wednesday (1810GMT – Tuesday).
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Later, a foreign ministry statement said Bangladesh strongly protested the Pakistani parliamentary resolution condemning Nizami’s execution for 1971 crimes against humanity, and summoned Islamabad’s envoy to the foreign office in Dhaka.
The Bangladesh authorities has ordered to execute death row war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami as the Islamist party chief chose not to seek presidential pardon.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, 71, was hanged at a Dhaka prison after he refused to appeal for clemency against the death sentence handed down following his conviction for genocide and other war crimes during the 1971 war. Five politicians, including four Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been executed since late 2013 after being convicted by the tribunal.
However, Jamaat-e-Islami denies any of its leaders committed atrocities. “There was a strong demand to establish these courts and prosecute those who committed crimes during the liberation war”, argued Wolf.
He was convicted in October 2014 by the International Crimes Tribunal, which was established in 2010 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government and has sentenced more than a dozen opposition leaders for war crimes.
Bangladesh today deployed thousands of police in the capital to prevent violence, after the main Islamist party called a nationwide strike to protest against its leader’s execution for warcrimes.
The hanging comes amid a wave of killings by suspected Islamists, with an atheist student, two gay rights activists, a professor, a Hindu tailor and a Sufi Muslim leader hacked to death since last month.
Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the security forces were ready to deal with anyone who tries to commit sabotage.
Trying suspected war criminals has posed a major challenge for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has faced strong global pressure to stop executing people such as Nizami who acted against the country’s struggle for independence.
The US state department and some human rights groups have said the trials fall short of global standards and need oversight.
Officially three million people were killed during the 1971 war.
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In an earlier statement the Foreign Ministry stated that Pakistan was following the reaction of the worldwide community and human rights organisations to the “controversial trials in Bangladesh” related to events of 1971.
