Bangladesh top court upholds opposition leaders’ death sentence News
Bangladesh top court upholds opposition leaders’ death sentence

The Bangladesh Supreme Court [official website] on Wednesday upheld the death sentences of two opposition leaders who were convicted of war crimes for their involvement in the 1971 Liberation War [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] against Pakistan. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, second in command of the Jamaat-e-Islami group, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party [party websites] will be executed [Bangladesh News report] if they are not granted presidential clemency. Chowdhury was originally sentenced [text, PDF] by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh (ICTB) [official website] in 2013. Mujadid’s brother commented that Mujadid will not seek pardon [Bangladesh News report], and that members of Jamaat-e-Islami have called for a 24-hour strike in protest of the decision.

The ICTB, which was established in 2009 under the International Crimes Act [text], is charged with investigating and prosecuting war crimes committed during the 1971 conflict, in which about 3 million people were killed. In June a Bangladeshi court gave Syed Mohammed Hasan Ali, a fugitive commander of an auxiliary force of Pakistani troops, a death sentence [JURIST report] for torture and massacre in the Liberation War. In April a Bangladeshi appeals court rejected [JURIST report] a final appeal by Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, an Islamist party official convicted of war crimes during the 1971 Liberation war, upholding his death sentence. Kamaruzzaman was executed later that month [JURIST report]. In February the ICTB convicted and sentenced [JURIST report] Abdul Jabbar, a militia leader and former lawmaker, to life in prison for genocide and religious persecution committed during the 1971 Liberation War. Earlier that month the tribunal convicted and sentenced [JURIST report] Islamist leader Adbus Subhan to death. In December 2014 the ICTB sentenced [JURIST report] the former Bangladeshi Junior Minister to death for genocide and crimes against humanity.

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