Bangladesh hangs Islamist leader Mir Quasem Ali

AAP photo

By

Sheuli Akter

Bangladesh has hanged Islamist party leader Mir Quasem Ali for war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence.

Proshanto Kumar Banik, superintendent of Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of Dhaka said the Islamist party leader was hanged to death Saturday night at about 10:30 p.m.

Earlier on Saturday night Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs ordered the execution of death row war criminal Ali.

Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Saturday night said, “An executive order to execute the death row war criminal has been sent to jail authorities as he chose not to seek presidential pardon after losing the final legal battle.”

Mir Quasem Ali was the sixth opposition figure who has been executed since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League-led government formed special tribunals in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 to book.

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Aug. 30 rejected Ali’s final appeal against the death sentence given to him by a special tribunal in 2014.

The 64-year old Islamist party leader was convicted of abduction, torture and mass murder as one of the key leader of a pro-Pakistan militia.

Hours before his execution his family members walked into the Kashimpur jail to meet him for one last time amid tight security measures.

Paramilitary troops alongside policemen were deployed in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.

Influential Ali reportedly appointed a US lobbyist firm for $25 million to stop the trial.

Ali’s Jamaat called a dawn to dusk strike for Wednesday in protest against the verdict.

Four Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party leaders and one opposition BNP leader had already been executed for 1971 war crimes.

The government of Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, established the first tribunal in March 2010 to punish culprits responsible for war crimes.

Sheuli Akter

Sheuli Akter, from Bangladesh, is a Special Correspondent and Editor of NsNewsWire, (Bangladesh’s First Press Newswire). Previously she had worked for Bangladesh’ top news agency, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) and top newspaper (now defunct) The Bangladesh Observer. She also gained an honourable mention in the first ever World Media Summit WMS Awards for ‘Exemplary News Professionals in Developing Countries’, receiving the award in Beijing in January 2015.