Bangladesh has hanged to death an opposition leader convicted of war crimes just hours after the country's apex court rejected a last-minute appeal against his death sentence, media reports citing local officials said Thursday.
Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was reportedly hanged to death in a jail in capital Dhaka Thursday night. If confirmed, Mollah would be the first person to be put to death for massacres committed during the country's bloody 1971 war of independence.
Mollah was condemned to life imprisonment by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal, a special domestic court with the jurisdiction and competence to try and punish any person accused of committing atrocities, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, in Bangladesh, including during the 1971 independence war.
After the prosecution appealed the Tribunal's decision to sentence him to life imprisonment, the country's Supreme Court sentenced Mollah to death on September 17 - a ruling that cannot be appealed.
He was originally scheduled to be executed at the Central Jail in capital Dhaka immediately after midnight on Wednesday, but the Supreme Court ordered an eleventh-hour stay of his execution just hours before he was to be hanged.
The Supreme Court decision came after Mollah's lawyers sought a stay on execution arguing that the authorities are going forward without completing the necessary legal procedures. Nevertheless, the country's apex court rejected the last-minute appeal earlier on Thursday, thereby clearing the way for Mollah's execution.
Incidentally, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had written to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a last-minute appeal to halt the execution, arguing that Mollah's trial did not meet international standards for imposition of the death penalty. But that request was apparently not considered.
East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971, after fighting Pakistani forces with support of the Indian military. Independent researchers estimate that between 300,000 and 500,000 people were killed in the impoverished country's independence struggle.
Notably, Jamaat-e-Islami was against Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan. In all, 12 people, including nine Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, are accused of crimes committed during the war preceding the independence of Bangladesh. Some of them have already been convicted.
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