Bangladesh's Supreme Court today upheld the death sentences handed down to two top opposition leaders convicted for war crimes committed during 1971 independence war against Pakistan, rejecting final review petitions and paving the way for their execution.
The four-member bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha rejected the review petitions of Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury.
Both Mujahid, 67, and Chowdhury, 66, were senior ministers in ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's BNP-led coalition government with the fundamentalist Jamaat being its key partner.
Mujahid was found to be a key mastermind of the massacre of the country's top intelligentsia just ahead of the December 16, 1971 independence war victory. Chowdhury carried out atrocities particularly at his home district of southeastern Chittagong, leading a violent campaign against the Hindus.
Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal had handed down death sentences to them in separate cases of crimes against humanity in 2013 and the apex court upheld the death penalty to Mujahid in June and to Chowdhury in July this year.
Sinha said the apex court would soon issue the verdicts in writing for subsequent procedures.
BNP did not react to the verdict on Chowdhury but some reports said police chased away a few Jamaat activists in parts of the capital as they tried to stage street protests.
Jamaat has issued a statement calling a nationwide strike tomorrow to protest the verdict.
"We have lost the case...That much I can tell you as the defence lawyer," chief defence counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain told reporters.
Asked if his clients would seek presidential clemency as their last resort to evade the gallows, he said, "it entirely dependents on their (convicts) decisions and the law says the state on its own could reduce the judgement."
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, however, said the full verdict in writing form would not be required to execute the convicts as "they were already served death warrants" soon after the Supreme Court upheld their capital punishment after which they filed their review petitions.
"The verdicts will be read out to the convicts and then they would be asked separately if they would like to seek the presidential pardon...If they want to seek the clemency, their prayers would be sent to the president," prosecutor Turin Afroz said.
Lawyers and legal experts said the convicts were tried under a special law and the execution of the verdicts would not follow the ordinary criminal procedure or the Jail Code which states that the prisoner be given seven days time to seek the presidential clemency.
Alam said the ordinary criminal procedure and the Jail Code were not applicable in their cases since they were tried under the special International Crimes Tribunal Act and "they could be executed anytime from now on".
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The verdict came amid a tight security vigil with security forces laying a security blanket in and around the Supreme Court complex since early morning.
Armed police and RAB (elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion) intensified their security vigil by blocking entry of ordinary people inside the complex as the court was set to deliver the judgement.
Bangladesh had overnight stepped up nationwide security amid fears of clashes after the verdict.
The verdict came amid fears of fresh sabotages to halt the ongoing trials and expected executions of several top 1971 war criminals after a series of "systematic clandestine attacks" that have left nine people, including two foreigners dead, and nearly 100 wounded in the past six weeks.
Police's special intelligence unit in a recent report feared fresh sabotages to halt the ongoing trials and expected execution of several top 1971 war criminals after a series of "systematic clandestine attacks" left nine people dead and nearly 100 wounded in the past six weeks.
In the latest such incident today, unidentified assailants earlier today attacked and wounded an Italian missionary doctor.
The Supreme Court until now disposed five cases of war crimes trial in the appeal process against verdicts of the country's International Crimes Tribunal. So far, two of the convicts have been hanged.
In one of the cases, the apex court enhanced the life imprisonment of one of the convicts -- Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah -- to death penalty, finding the tribunal verdict too lenient.
In another case, the apex court reduced the death sentence of another Jamaat stalwart Delwar Hossain Sayeedi to be imprisonment until his death.
In both the cases, presidential clemency was not sought by the convicts.
Bangladesh began the war crimes trials as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami Leagu government passes special laws and set up special tribunals for them.
