Bangladesh executes opposition leader
Iran Press TV
Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:40PM GMT
Bangladesh has executed a high-profile member of Jamaat-e-Islami party, Abdul Quader Molla, over crimes he allegedly committed during the independence war from Pakistan in 1971.
Molla, 65, was hanged on Thursday at a jail in the capital, Dhaka, said Bangladeshi Deputy Law Minister Quamrul Islam.
The execution of the senior opposition figure was carried out hours after the Supreme Court of Bangladesh dismissed his appeal for a final review.
Molla was initially sentenced to life in prison in February over allegations of war crimes -- charges that he and his lawyer strongly denied.
But the sentence was toughened up after he appealed against the ruling.
"My client (Molla) has been deprived of fair justice. But since the highest court has made the decision we have nothing more to say," defense lawyer Khandaker Mahbub Hossain said after the Supreme Court's ruling earlier in the day.
The trial sparked international outcries while critics denounced it as unfair. Jamaat-e-Islami also warned that executing Molla would bring "dire consequences.'
Molla was one of the five top opposition leaders who were convicted by a controversial tribunal for their role in mass killings during the war, which saw then East Pakistan break away from Pakistan.
The Bangladeshi opposition accuses the government of seeking to silence them by putting their leaders on trial for alleged war crimes committed more than four decades ago.
Human rights groups also say the court's legal procedures fall short of international standards.
Bangladeshi people have repeatedly taken to the streets in major Bangladeshi cities to voice their protest against the controversial trials of opposition leaders and activists.
Nearly 200 people have been killed and thousands wounded in clashes between protesters and security forces since the beginning of this year.
MRS/AB/SS
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