Jamaat-e-Islami chief refuses to seek presidential clemency against death sentence

Dhaka: Fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami's execution seemed imminent as an executive order to hang him was issued tonight after he refused to seek presidential clemency for war crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan.

"Nizami did not seek mercy. The executive order to carry out the death sentence has been sent to the prison authorities," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said tonight.

His comments came as elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion joined police to step up security around the Dhaka Central Jail in old part of the capital. The jail guards have beefed up the security inside the facility. The street in front of the jail has also been barricaded and closed to traffic.

73-year-old Nizami's family members, including his wife, two sons and their wives, went to the jail this evening after prison officials asked them to go and meet him for the last time, bdnews24 reported.

Nizami, the chief of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, was given capital punishment in October 2014 by a special tribunal after being convicted of "superior responsibility" as the chief of the infamous Al-Badr militia forces in 1971.

He was particularly found guilty of systematic killings of over 450 people in his own village. His final appeal against his death sentence was rejected by the apex court on May 5.

A former minister in ex-premier Khaleda Zia's BNP-led four-party coalition government, Nizami has been in jail since 2010, when he was arrested to be tried 1971 war crimes.

TV reports quoting unidentified jail officials said a group of hangmen from among the prison inmates was kept ready after necessary exercises as per procedure. Shahjahan Ali would lead them as the chief executioner and another inmate Raju would act as his top aide.

Prison officials earlier said jail doctors checked the heath of the death row convict last night after the Supreme Court verdict was read out to him while senior jail officials saw him at his solitary confinement earlier on Tuesday.

Jamaat had on Saturday said: "Question doesn't arise at all to seek mercy to anybody else except Allah".

Nizami's his eldest son and lawyer Najib Momen supplemented the party statement, saying "He (Nizami) will not seek clemency to the President".

Nizami appears to be the last remaining top perpetrators of crimes against humanity as Bangladesh so far executed four war criminals since the trial process began six years ago.