Bangladesh’s fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami leader and media tycoon Mir Quasem Ali was hanged on Saturday night, the sixth Islamist to be executed for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 liberation War against Pakistan.
Ali, 63, widely considered as the top financier of the Jamaat, was hanged at the high-security Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of the capital.
“He was hanged at 10.35 pm (local time),” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.
Ali’s execution came after he refused to seek presidential clemency on Friday.
Minutes after the hanging, a jail official came out and told reporters that doctors were carrying out an autopsy on Ali’s body. Prison officials had earlier said Ali’s body would be brought to his village home at northern Manikganj district for burial. Hundreds of liberation War veterans and trial campaigners rejoiced at the execution of the last of the high-profile perpetrators.