Bangladesh executes two senior opposition leaders

A senior jail official in Bangladesh says two influential opposition leaders have been executed for committing war crimes during the country’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

Earlier on Saturday, Justice Minister Anisul Huq said the two had sought clemency from the president after exhausting all legal appeals to avoid execution.

They are among more than a dozen leaders of the opposition alliance convicted by the tribunal, which was set up by the secular government in 2010.

Sons of the two convicts, however, questioned whether their fathers had in fact sought mercy, saying they don’t believe the government’s statements.

The families of Chowdhury and Mujahid met them for the last time inside the Dhaka Central Jail on Saturday evening before the planned executions, authorities said.

This is for the first time in the country that two ministers have been hanged for war crimes.

Bangladesh’s worldwide Crime Tribunal (ICT) convicted the 2 & sentenced them to death in 2013.

Just before the execution, family members of the two convicts, who served as ministers and in various key positions during Gen H M Ershad and Khaleda Zia’s tenures, were allowed to meet them amid tightened security around the high security prison in Dhaka.

Mujahid was sentenced to death in 2013.

The worldwide Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party, affords the accused the right “to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his or her behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him or her”. Around 2,000 soldiers of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), a paramilitary force, were patrolling the streets of the capital.

East Pakistan broke away to become independent Bangladesh after the war between India and Pakistan.

Supreme Court’s Appellate Division issued the full text of the final verdict on Thursday, a day after it rejected the review petitions of Mujahid and Chowdhury, paving the way for their execution.

News of the executions comes as Bangladesh has been reeling under a string of terror attacks, beginning with the killing of four secular bloggers and a publisher this year by a Islamic fundamentalist group inspired by the writings of al-Qaeda.

Police have shut down roads to and from Dhaka Central Jail, where authorities have prepared the gallows for the two politicians, said a police officer. While rights groups say atrocities were committed and there needs to be accountability, global doubts over the legal proceedings against the opposition figures have intensified.

YesterdayNew York-based Human Rights Watch asked Bangladesh to halt the “imminent executions” of Mujahid and Chowdhury, citing “serious fair trial concerns surrounding their convictions”.