Bangladesh Jamaat chief to be hanged

Dhaka, May 5 

Fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami could be executed anytime after the Bangladesh Supreme Court today rejected a final appeal against his death sentence for war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War with Pakistan.

Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, who headed a four-member Appellate Division bench, pronounced the single-word judgment at the tense courtroom.

"Dismissed," said Sinha, who is the first Hindu to occupy the post in the Muslim-majority country. Officials said the detail order would be issued later.

Nizami, 72, has been convicted of murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of top intellectuals during the 1971 independence war. He was given capital punishment in October 2014 after being convicted of "superior responsibility" as the chief of the infamous Al-Badr militia forces in 1971.

The so-called elite militia force is blamed for running a systematic campaign on behalf of Pakistan Army to massacre a large number of top Bengali intelligentsia just ahead of Bangladesh's December 16, 1971 victory.

Nizami was particularly found guilty of systematic killings of more than 450 people alone in his own village home in northwestern Pabna, siding with the Pakistani troops. 

Tight security was enforced in and around the court complex ahead of the verdict, though unlike the trial court, the apex court procedures did not require Nizami's presence during the delivery of the judgment. — PTI