Bangladesh death-row Jamaat leader faces final plea
A senior leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party faces the last chance to challenge his controversial death sentence as prison authorities are preparing for his execution.
Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the third most influential member in the Islamist party, will be asked Thursday if he would seek presidential clemency, according to Bangladesh's junior home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan.
“A magistrate will go to him (Thursday) and ask him finally whether he would seek a mercy pardon,” Khan said, adding, “If he decides to seek presidential mercy, we will send his appeal to the president. But if he declines to seek clemency, we will execute the verdict.”
Kamaruzzaman, who is convicted of organizing a massacre during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence, lost his last legal appeal against execution on Monday.
The dismissal of the petition by Bangladesh's Supreme Court sparked fierce clashes between supporters of the Jamaat and police forces in some parts of the country.
In 2013, a domestic war crimes tribunal handed the death penalty to Kamaruzzaman and other senior members of Jamaat in what is seen by rights advocates as an attempt to silence Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's opponents. The secular government in Dhaka, however, says the sentences are needed to heal the wounds of the 1971 conflict which saw Bangladesh gaining independence from Pakistan.
UN opposes hanging
The United Nations on Wednesday called on Dhaka to stop carrying out the death sentences, saying the trials in 2013 did not meet international standards.
“The UN Human Rights Office has long warned that, given serious concerns about the fairness of trials conducted before the tribunal, the government of Bangladesh should not implement death penalty sentences,” said a statement by the UN's rights office.
Kamaruzzaman is currently in Dhaka Central Prison where authorities have reportedly read out to him the Supreme Court’s judgment and have sought his view on seeking clemency.
If executed, Kamaruzzaman would be the second Islamist leader hanged in Bangladesh in less than two years. Abdul Quader Molla, another influential leader of Jamaat party, was executed at the order of the government-sponsored tribunal on December 12, 2013.
MS/KA/SS
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