Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentences of two top opposition leaders convicted for war crimes committed during 1971 independence war against Pakistan, paving the way for their execution.
The four-member bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha rejected the final review petitions of Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury. 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, the second most senior member of Jamaat, 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.