Bangladesh has executed two opposition party leaders convicted of war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.
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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.
They were awarded the death sentence along many other leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh by a controversial War Tribunal in 2013.
Two top Bangladesh opposition leaders who are expected to be hanged within days sought clemency from the president on Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to escape the gallows, the country’s justice minister said.
Chowdhury and Mujahid filed review petitions on October 14 after the appeal court upheld the death sentences they received in 2013.
Security has been beefed up at all sensitive points in the capital, and across the country especially in potential trouble spots like Faridpur and Chittagong to avoid any untoward incident following their execution. Mujahid, secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty of charges including torture and the murders of intellectuals and minority Hindus while he commanded Al Badr, an auxiliary force of the Pakistani army, during the war to break away from Pakistan.
Both – the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami party – have dismissed the court as a government “show trial”, saying it is a domestic set-up without the oversight or involvement of the UN.
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. He is a six-times ex-lawmaker and a top aide to Khaleda Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Jamaat, banned from contesting the 2014 general election, said the executions were part of a strategy “aimed at eliminating” its leadership.
Although worldwide rights groups have criticised the trials as unfair, the government says they are vital for Bangladesh to confront its traumatic birth.
The Foreign Ministry also noted that Pakistan has also noted the worldwide community’s reaction to the “flawed trials in Bangladesh related to events of 1971”.
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After news of the execution broke, supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League took to the streets to celebrate and also unfurled huge national flags near the prison.
