Bangladesh executed top Jamaat-e-Islami leader Motiur Rahman Nizami for ‘1971 war crimes’, the country’s media reported on Tuesday.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged after the country’s highest court published the final judgement upholding his execution order.
Nizami’s execution could exacerbate tensions in the country after a string of killings of secular and liberal activists and religious minorities by suspected Islamist militants.
Officials read the verdict to Nizami on Monday night after he was brought to Dhaka Central Jail from a prison outside the capital, senior jailor Jahangir Kabir told reporters.
The JI leader did not say then whether he would seek any presidential clemency, Kabir said, and prisoners are normally given a 24-hour window after verdict publication to formally apply.
Nizami’s lawyer said last week that he would not seek any pardon as it would require him to admit crimes he was convicted of, including mass murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of secular intellectuals during the 1971 war of independence.
Three senior Jamaat officials and a leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have been executed since December 2013 for war crimes despite global criticism of their trials. All were hanged at the jail.
“Extra policemen have been deployed at the jail,” Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mofizuddin Ahmed told AFP.
Heavily armed Rapid Action Battalion officers were also dispatched, the elite squad’s spokesman, Mufti Mahmud Khan, told AFP.