Bangladesh Islamist leader on death row faces final plea

A Bangladesh Islamist leader has a final chance today to avoid the gallows by appealing to the president for clemency against his death sentence for war crimes, an official said.
Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the third most senior figure in the Jamaat-e-Islami party, lost his last legal appeal on Monday against hanging for overseeing a massacre during the country's 1971 war of independence.
Bangladesh's junior home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the Islamist leader would be asked later today whether he would seek presidential clemency, adding that prison authorities were prepared for his execution.
"A magistrate will go to him (today) and ask him finally whether he would seek a mercy pardon," Khan told AFP.

"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," the minister also told reporters.
The UN yesterday urged Bangladesh against carrying out the sentence, saying his trial conducted by a domestic war crimes tribunal in 2013 did not meet "fair 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," the UN's rights office said in a statement.
Kamaruzzaman was convicted of abduction, torture and mass murder including a slaughter in a remote northern hamlet that has since become known as the "Village of Widows".

The conviction confirmed allegations that Kamaruzzaman was one of the chief organisers of a pro-Pakistan militia that killed thousands of people.
The conflict led to the creation of an independent Bangladesh from what was then East Pakistan.
If the execution is carried out, Kamaruzzaman would become the second Islamist hanged so far for war crimes, even though several others have been handed death sentence.
Officials at Dhaka Central Prison read out Monday's Supreme Court judgement to Kamaruzzaman in his cell late on Wednesday and also sought his decision on seeking clemency, his lawyer Shishir Manir said.
Bangladesh suffered its deadliest chapter of political violence in 2013 after the tribunal handed down a series of death sentences on Jamaat leaders for their role in the 1971 conflict.

Jamaat says the trials are mainly aimed at silencing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's opponents rather than delivering justice.