Bangladesh Supreme Court upholds Islamist leader death sentence

PanARMENIAN.Net - Bangladesh's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of an Islamist leader, Abdul Kader Mullah.The judge dismissed his appeal, saying it paves the way for his execution, according to BBC News.

Mullah had been scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, Dec 10, before gaining a reprieve. No new date has been set.

He was convicted in February of crimes against humanity during the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. The senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party denies the charges.

Jamaat says that the trial is politically motivated.

"There is now no legal bar to execute him," Attorney-General Mahbubey Alam told AFP in the court, amid applause by pro-government lawyers.

Alam said that Mullah had exhausted all avenues of appeal and did not have any right to seek clemency from the president. But Mullah's lawyers have disputed his conclusions.

His trial earlier this year sparked protests from Jamaat supporters. They accuse the government of pursuing a political vendetta which has resulted in the imprisonment of several of the party's senior leaders.

Security was stepped up in Dhaka in advance of Thursday's ruling.

Mullah is one of five Islamist leaders condemned to death by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), set up in 2010 to investigate atrocities committed during the 1971 conflict, in which some estimates say that as many as three million people died.

So far none of those convicted has been executed.

Mullah - who is assistant secretary-general of Jamaat -was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for killing unarmed civilians and intellectuals in the Mirpur suburb of the capital Dhaka.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding the death penalty, a move that prompted parliament to amend a law allowing the state to appeal against any verdict reached by the war crimes tribunal.

The Supreme Court then passed a death sentence.

Bangladesh set up the special court to deal with those accused of collaborating with Pakistani forces who attempted to stop East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was then, from becoming an independent country. However, human rights groups have said the tribunal falls short of international standards and that he should have another opportunity to appeal.

Jamaat is barred from contesting elections scheduled for Jan 5 but plays a key role in the opposition movement led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).