Bangladesh executes opposition leaders on charges of war crimes

Despite reservations expressed by the USA and global human rights groups, Bangladesh last week hanged 2 Opposition leaders, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, for their alleged involvement in war crimes.

Hundreds of police had been stationed outside the jail in Dhaka’s old quarter where scaffolds had been prepared to execute the pair. Soon after the execution, ambulances escorted by elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and armed police came out of the prison complex carrying the bodies.

Chowdhury was convicted on charges of torture, rape and genocide during the country’s independence war against Pakistan, while Mujahid was found guilty on charges of genocide, conspiracy in killing intellectuals, torture and abduction.

The party had campaigned openly against independence for Bangladesh, which was part of Pakistan until the 1971 war.

Since its inception in 2010, the ICT has delivered 17 verdicts, of which 15 have resulted in the imposition of the death penalty against members of Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh National Party (BNP), she said. He is a six-times ex-lawmaker and a top aide to Khaleda Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed their final appeals, upholding the leaders’ death sentences originally handed down by a controversial domestic war crimes tribunal in 2013. Earlier on Saturday, Justice Minister Anisul Huq said the two had sought clemency from the president after exhausting all legal appeals to avoid execution.

The general conclusion is that it was the Jamaat-e-Islami that committed those crimes. Nevertheless, authorities were being cautious after a spate of killings claimed by Islamist extremists this year, including the murders of four secular bloggers, a publisher and two foreigners since February.

Few were expected to heed the call to strike.

“All human rights activists, including the HRCP, had expressed concern over the unfair trial of the BNP leaders in Bangladesh”, she added.

“Equal passion, we hope, will be shown by the government for the people on death row in Pakistan than being hanged elsewhere in the world by denying due process”, Dawn quoted her saying. Bangladesh’s government says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women during the fighting. Independent researchers however say the overall death toll was much lower.